


The Can Town Communication Manual

by artreactor



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Accidental Break-Up, Angst, Angst and Humor, Bets & Wagers, Communication Failure, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Implied Not-Cis Jake, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Post-Game, Situation comedy, autistic jake, background pairings: davekat; rosekanaya; janeterezi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7924147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artreactor/pseuds/artreactor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The following leaflet contains necessary information on how to fix your broken not-relationship through the art of communication! Provided that you don't dance around the topic for almost a decade, fail step one of the Communication Manual by not communicating concisely and efficiently, and break up with your not-boyfriend of almost ten years. If the above has happened to you because your name is Dirk Strider, please refer to our Contingency Plan which is most certainly not "keep fucking up."</p><p>You're not reading the Contingency Plan, are you?</p><p>God damn it.</p><p>(also known as the one where Dirk accidentally breaks up with Jake and everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong in between.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the one where dirk fucks up (again)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kylobe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylobe/gifts).



> This is my first multi-chapter since I was like thirteen so I apologise in advance for a likely sporadic update schedule. Also I apologise for like, my inability to write Dave and Rose convos or like. Convos with either of them in general. I'm a mess as you can tell. 
> 
> ANYWAY. This was inspired by that New Girl Remixed song you know the one that's like "kiss me like a man, just kiss me" "I'M A MAN JESSICA I'M A MAN" but then I got really off track. Also, thank you to Meg Softdykes for the majority of Quality Post Game DirkJake Content™ this was based on

Dave Strider is not a betting man.

He is especially not the kind of man who has ever bet on his brother for anything. Bro was always an enigma and not in a good way. Attempting to predict anything he was ever going to do was useless and Dave gave up aged seven after he was first expelled for shurikens in his lunch box. Trying to unravel his batshit plans only ever gave Dave a headache and more external injuries.

He has learned the same thing with Dirk, albeit a bit too late and for different reasons. For a guy who plans everything out to the most absolutely minute detail, Dirk is the most unreliable guy imaginable. He is either up at the crack of dawn, setting a stove on fire in his attempts to fry a can of baked beans he found, or he sleeps for three days straight after not sleeping for three days straight and Dave sees him practically scurrying out of the kitchen with a packet of digestive biscuits at five in the afternoon. He's either lying across Dave's lap as he tries to have a movie date with his boyfriend, silently seeking validation, or no one sees him for three weeks. He's either on cloud nine, humming as he drinks the coconut milk straight out of the carton, rubbing the forming purple bruises along his neck, or he's sliding into the bedroom at three am to ramble nihilism as Karkat vibrates under the covers with the repressed urge to tell him to go fuck himself if he's that desperate.

In a moment of madness and arguable cockiness however, Dave did make a rather regrettable bet. Regrettable both by the fact that it attempted to predict the actions of his brother, and by the fact that he made it with Rose.

 

  
"A more curious part of me wonders what exactly happened there," she had said out of nowhere, resting an elbow on his shoulder in a way they had both deemed a necessary part of their patronising sibling relationship. Dave had looked up at where his brother was making stilted conversation behind a tree with Jake English, who in turn was making exaggerated hand gestures in between scuffing his weird winged boots against the grass. Dave was more interested in the grass, to be frank. It had been years since he'd seen any. He'd never appreciated the tufts of weeds that grew between the cracks on Texas sidewalks until they were gone.

"Kanaya's rubbing off on you," he had answered as he bent down to pull a blade of grass, rolling it between his fingers. He only decided to continue when he didn't feel her gaze shift off him. She had a weird way of making her stare feel caustic. "You're meddling, 's all I'm saying. Don't look at me like that, you know she meddles. She practically says it. She comes right out and says "Hello Dave, I'm about to pry into the innermost workings of your social and arguably existent romantic life. The fact that I'm admitting this before I do it makes it okay," only with more caps. She's like, the ultra meddler. She's self aware. She has too much power, Rose. It's like she's some omniscient busy body who knows exactly which bodies are busy all the time. I'm just looking out for you. You know I want what's best for you and what's best for you is knitting or some shit and not messing with my bro's business like a meddlepants. Do you want to be a meddlepants, Rose? Do you want to be a term I just made up to counteract the lack of coherency in this ramble? No, I didn't think so. Case closed, lawyers are dismissed, we no longer need your witness testimony or whatever. Speaking of which, where the everloving fuck is Terezi? Did we just fucking forget her again? Who did the head count around here, I need to make it the first decree of this new world that their ass is primely fired, roasted and served as the first meal."

Rose waited until he was finished, patiently. "By implying Kanaya is omniscient in her meddling, you do realise you're saying, how did you put it exactly? Ah yes, you're saying that your body is in fact busy. Care to explain?"

"Terezi's fucking missing, Rose, I don't have time for jokes."

"Implying your romantic endeavours are a joke. No need to put yourself or Karkat down now."

He huffed, crossing his arms before glancing at the awkward tree conversation again. "What did you want again? I'm pretty sure you didn't come up to me with the intent of making me want to pirouette straight off these steps and never stop falling. It keeps happening, Rose, much like your love of causing me intense emotional anguish. Ever stop to think that these problems you keep diagnosing me with are caused by your incessant diagnosis? Ever think I just have a mental intolerance to your bullshit, Rose? Ever thought of that?"

"I was simply going to inquire as to your knowledge on the current situation unfolding?"

He twirled the blade of grass between his fingers again. "How the fuck am I supposed to know? Guy said he had buddy problems and I can see why like, Rose, I know you're gaping at those two like a soap addict eavesdropping on preteen girls' cell phone spats, all gaped mouth and desperate for gossip like a celebrity rag but while you were surveying my brother's admittedly avian looking hair like a fucking bird watcher did you happen to actually look at that guy? Like really fucking look at him? Like this might strike you as strange, Rose, but I think it will capture the intensity of this situation if I tell you that I am lost for words. The only word coming to mind right now is 'damn' and we both know I'm usually at least five words more coherent than that."

"Should I be concerned that you find both of John's parents attractive? More importantly, should Karkat be concerned?"

"I'm calling it like it is and it is pretty fucking hot."

"So you believe that this boils down to Mr. Grandpa Harleybert being an arguably attractive man?"

"Look, dude was rambling up a storm about him earlier and I gotta admit it got to the point where I tuned out and the only thing I heard was "Blah blah blah Jade's hot grandpa blah blah" and I think that's a pretty generous gist to give." He dropped the blade of grass. "They'll be bumping uglies by the end of the fucking week, problem solved. No need to earn the title of meddlepants."

Rose was silent for a moment and when Dave turned he saw she was still firmly watching the conversation behind the tree, which had devolved into Jake staring in bemusement as Dirk made way too big of a deal pointing and rambling at the grass. "I think you still give your brother far too much credit," she said, finally.

"I don't give him jack shit," Dave had replied, a little too fast and a little too snappy. He'd barely gotten it out before the look on her face made him regret it.

"Ten years."

He stares at her before raising an eyebrow. "You going to tell me what you mean by that or is this just going to be some elusive thing you spit out before submitting to the shadows again."

"I'm simply stating the facts as I have observed them and how they will unfold. That distinctly looks like the kind of major interpersonal communication breakdown that will take over a decade to solve. To put it colloquially, shit is fucked and will remain fucked for at least the next decade until it is, at some point, unfucked."

He scoffed. "Bullshit. Ten years is a fucking age, Rose. Ten years ago we were in diapers."

"I am concerned at the implication that you were still in diapers aged six. You really do give your brother far too much credit."

"It will not take ten fucking years."

And he should've known by her expression, a quirked lip and brow combination that only means trouble. "That sounds like something you're willing to bet on."

 

  
Of course, Dirk Strider turned out to be exactly the kind of person who'd take ten years to re-ask a guy out. Dave started to wonder around year six but by halfway through year eight, he was certain. By the time their conjoined twenty-sixth birthdays rolled around, he was starting to get nervous.

There was no hope in hell that Rose would have forgotten of course. She hadn't mentioned it since and, if it were anyone else, he would assume it to be a joke, left in the past. But it wasn't anyone else and the raised eyebrows and knowing smirks he's been getting in hallways from her are steadily increasing in number throughout December. After one particularly horrid nightmare, or premonition, involving knitted procubis and octopi, he resolves himself to do what he had always promised himself he wouldn't stoop to.

Meddling.

"So, Dirk," he says casually, subtly leaning across the kitchen counter, "How are you doing? I mean, I don't ask you that enough, don't you think? I never go, hey bro, what's shaking with you? It's pretty fucking rude of me, like. Anything could be shaking with you. You could be more shaken than an unstirred martini in an Englishman's hand."

Dirk stares. "Why is your knee on the counter?" he asks, moving his plate away lest Dave's leg knock it off as he leans closer.

"Speaking of English, how is Jake? I haven't seen him in a while. Bailed on our last two movie dates like some slippery eel. Keep trying to put that fucker back in the tank but he wants to be free. Free willy, the penis resembling aquatic feature. A heartwarming tale for all the family. I'm sure he wouldn't have stood me up like a lovestruck teen on prom night if I'd offered a classic like that. Haven't seen any evidence of his existence around either. Did he finally file those chompers down to a semi-normal size or have you done away with him and buried him out back. Jade will find the bones, you know. I really hope you didn't kill the guy this time, though, because I can't handle another fucking round of Inquisition starring Hot Mom Two and Attirezi Pinch."

If Dirk is in anyway fazed by this, he doesn't show it. He bites into his sandwich, chews, and swallows before answering. "What?"

Dave sighs. "Dude, what's the deal? Just fucking spill it, alright? Brothers talk to each other about this shit all the time. I watched Drake and Josh, I know what's up. Look, I'll even let you be the one who doesn't slam right into Oprah's bread loving ass so come on, chop chop, get into the hat pile and tell me your feelings and shit."

"We don't do that," Dirk answers, taking another bite. He eats the crusts, like a goddamn madman.

"Do what?"

"Talk."

"We're literally talking right now."

"We don't talk about this. About feelings and romantic shit. We don't do the whole twirl your phone cord around your index finger and gossip into your pillow horseshit. Since when do you give a flying fuck about my love life?"

Dave wants to strangle him but he refrains from dishing out any more violent neck trauma in this decade at least. "What, am I not allowed show some brotherly concern? Because I'm pretty fucking concerned, bro. I mean no offence here, but either you two are dating or English's weird sparkle power he's got going on sometimes is a symbol of something more sinister than whacko faith fairy dust. Like latent vampirism?”

“We're not dating.”

“Dirk, you've got like seven fucking billion hickies.”

“Those are platonic hickies.”

Dave smushes his face right into his knee, groaning loudly. “What is your fucking problem? The guy's all over you like a fucking rash and, believe me, that shit's contagious and what, you're going to the doctor? The only thing you should be going to a doctor for is to fix your piss poor attitude.”

Another bite into the sandwich. “Was that metaphor supposed to mean anything?”

“Oh don't go there. You are so not in a position to diss me on this.”

“Sure.”

“Why aren't you dating him?”

He stops mid bite before sighing and pulling out a chair. “Jake's not ready.”

“And he told you this in between chewing on your neck like a flesh eating beaver?”

Dirk is silent and Dave watches as he slowly bites into his sandwich again. Chews, swallows. And then he bites into it again. Dave almost gets distracted with the want of a sandwich and considers nabbing one in between interrogations. He barely manages to resist the temptation. Barely.

“He did tell you, right?”

“Not verbally.”

“Hey man, it's cool,” Dave says dryly, “It's fine, like, it's not like there was any way to ask or anything. It's not like you could just sit down and ask if he was ready to go the whole hog, the entire pig, or whatever. It's not like you have a voicebox which is made for articulating basic fucking questions.”

“ _I'm_ not ready,” Dirk snaps and Dave straightens up.

“Okay now we're getting somewhere,” he says, leaning forward again, “Why?”

“You know why.”

Ah. Suddenly, Dave does know why. He doesn't often feel guilty any more for being hard on Dirk and really doesn't feel lke he should, but right now he does feel just a slight bit guilty even if he knows for certain he has no reason to. “It's been ten fucking years. It's an age, Dirk.”

Dirk stares at his feet, evidently chewing the inside of his cheek. “I can't risk it,” he says finally, “I can't risk asking him and pressuring him again. I can't risk him saying yes just to appease my neurotic need for unconditional commitment.”

“So you just make the decision for him. Right, because not letting him make the decision is so much better than the slim possibility that he'll say yes to something he doesn't already fucking want.”

“You don't know what he wants.”

“Neither do you.”

He's silent again and, in a fleeting moment of actual joy, Dave realises he's won. He can already smell the sweet scent of victory. That could also be just the smell of mayonnaise to an already rumbling stomach but he's going to say it's victory.

“Why are you doing this?” Dirk asks, interrupting Dave's train of thought to where it had digressed to types of sandwiches.

“What, is a guy not allowed to care around here?” he asks and is slightly surprised that it's not a complete deflection.

 

 

"Is that wine?"

Jake regards Dirk, who is leaning almost sideways in the doorway, one sneaker propped up against the other side of the frame and a bottle in one of his hands. It's 3pm on a Wednesday and yet Jake is overcome with the feeling that it is far, far too early for this.

"No, it's tomato juice," Dirk answers, raising an eyebrow. That makes far more sense. Even if Dirk drank alcohol on any remote level, it would never have any effect on him great enough for him to deem the act worthwhile. Jake knows. "You like that right?"

"Of course," he answers, moving aside to let Dirk in. He unfolds himself from what looks now like it was a really uncomfortable position and slips in quietly, shutting the door behind him. The tomato juice is dropped unceremoniously on the counter and Dirk shrugs off his jacket like he came in from the depths of winter as opposed to a room one floor down. Jake wonders absentmindedly for the hundredth time if he should just tell Dirk to move in. The guy practically lives in Jake's penthouse section of the communal living quarters anyway, what with how often he's there. Dirk claims it's for the view of the new universe's stars through the glass pane in the roof. Jake likes to think it's for him.

Dirk usually makes a show of pretending he has a reason to be here, either by pointedly lying on the rug and stargazing, stealing tentative glances across the room until Jake joins him, or making a huge show of requesting a film or a wrench or the milk from Jake's minifridge. When Jake is down, he'll oblige Dirk's show, fetching milk or anything else before offering coffee which Dirk takes to go. When he's up, he tells Dirk not to be so utterly ridiculous before kissing him a lovely shade of blue against the nearest surface. Mostly, and currently, Jake feels okay. Middlish. And he takes things how they go.

Unusually, Dirk does not make a show. He instead fidgets with his belt, and then with his hair, and then with the hemmed collar of his shirt. Jake feels his gaze shift up and down in an attempt to comprehend the movements but just ends up fidgeting in befuddlement himself, hands flapping quietly by his sides.

The silence becomes too awkward and unbearable for even Jake to stomach and he hears himself pipe up more so than he actively makes the decision to. "So are you going to tell me what's got you so jiffled or are you going to toss me a penny here?"

Dirk, bless his soul, doesn't miss a beat in translating. "It's nothing," he answers, unsatisfyingly.

"I hardly think it's nothing. You're wriggling more vigorous than a snig in a tight capped bottle so _something_ must have got your goose."

"Can I kiss you?" Dirk interrupts and he starts, raising an eyebrow. He rarely asks, but that doesn't mean he ever does it without asking. These days Jake's usually the one closing the distance after Dirk stares at his mouth for five minutes straight. They almost never kiss in public but on the rare occasions Dirk does ask in the company of others, a hushed whisper before a quick, almost puckered peck to the lips, Jake's noticed people looking curiously. Dirk asks for nothing, not because he's an altruist but because he takes what he wants when he wants it be it commodities or time or attention. It's strange that he asks when it comes to Jake but perhaps, given everything, it's not strange at all. It is, however, awkward. But Jake wouldn't have it any other way.

"Whale on ahead," he replies, scooting closer. Perhaps this is one manner of convincing Dirk to speak. He leans in and closes the distance and it's as awkward as it ever is starting out. They take a few seconds to work their way around what angles their heads should be at and how close they need to stand together until the reach a comfortable compromise with Jake's head tilted and Dirk's arms around his neck.

It ends sooner than Jake anticipates. Usually he's the first to pull away, threatening to batter Dirk off with a wooden stick if he doesn't let him breathe for a second. So it's unusual that Dirk pulls back a little, leaving Jake almost chasing after his lips pathetically. When he opens his eyes, Dirk is staring at the floor.

"I want to date," he says after a beat. Jake blinks and Dirk feels a bead of sweat roll down his forehead.

“Date,” Jake repeats, almost flatly as he tilts his head to the side.

Dirk's fingers intertwine and he flexes them and unflexes them. “I want,” he starts, before reconsidering, “I feel like I'm ready to date.”

There's silence for another beat as Jake processes. He hasn't the absolute foggiest idea what Dirk is talking about. They're dating, aren't they? Sure Jake has elected to refuse the title of boyfriend on account of paramour being a far less stifling term but surely that doesn't mean they're not dating? They go on dates, occasionally, with novelty ice-cream and and chick flicks. Surely that's a form of dating, even if they're not explictedly in a relationship. But, let's face it, the difference is in the labelling and it always has been. He's curious as to why Dirk would take the opportunity to label this now of all times, if that's what he's going for with this. But Jake's not too sure where this is going. Was Dirk ever the one who had a problem with dating, enough so that readiness was an issue? If he had, Jake hadn't noticed. He'd assumed he was the one with the problem, the one with the excessive need for space, even within a title. Perhaps he was wrong.

Dirk wipes his palms in his flares. The more seconds go by without a reply, the more he struggles with not running away. Five seconds in, he desperately grapples for something to fall back on, something to save face, anything to stop Jake staring at him blankly.

“Other people.”

Jake blinks. “What?”

“I want to date other people,” Dirk says. He considers when he taught himself English and how to formulate words from internet sources and videos his brother left when he was four and, for not the first time in his life, he regrets it.

“You're..,” Jake starts but doesn't finish.

“I have to go,” he blurts before promptly disappearing. The door creaking shut is the only thing that signifies he left and didn't simply vanish into thin air.

Jake stares at the door, speechless, thoughtless. His brain can't even begin to quantify or formulate an appropriate reaction to what just happened.

"What the absolute _fuck_ was that?" Brain Ghost Dirk helpfully supplies from behind him. Jake supposes that works.

 

 


	2. the one with the wet carpet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where nothing much happens, but the cogs are further set in motion because, let's face it, things never stop from keep happening constantly, even if they're really slow.
> 
> (This chapter contains: implied suicide referenced in a dismissive manner, one brief bestiality joke)

Dave Strider is brainstorming concepts for good forfeits with Karkat when Dirk treks lake water into their living room, again.

Not that Karkat cares in the slightest. Instead, he has a book perched between his knees and he licks his finger before turning the page each time, making sounds of encouragement as Dave speaks but contributing nothing that would lead him to believe he was actually paying attention. That’s okay. Dave is brutal enough on his own without suggestions, as it turns out.

“What if we make her take Detective Duty for a year? I mean, why should we always be stuck playing the important role of nameless corpse number six for A Time to Kill with Jane Doe and Pyratio Cane? Yeah, I know blind jokes are so 2009, but hear me out: Pyratio Cane was a good one. Ugh, who cares anyway. They’d so let Rose be something cool like old baldy himself. They never let me be the judge. Like, guys, I fucking get it. I’m good at playing dead. It’s a personal talent of mine. I’ve had a lot of practice. But do I really have to do it once a week? Give a guy a bit of variety like I’ll never make it to CanHollywood at this rate. Do we even have CanHollywood?”

“Mhm.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Fake listening. I’ve got your number. Okay strike Detective Duty off the list because, once again, everyone is in fucking cahoots. Dirk, did you drown yourself again?”

Dirk stops dead in the living room, hair and clothes dripping murky water on to the carpet. He has the look of a guy whose hand was caught in the cookie jar. “No.”

Dave puts down his pen. A few minutes later, Karkat groans and puts down his book. “What never ceases to amaze me about this perpetual set of happenings is that we have a perfectly functioning submersion block. There is literally no fucking reason for you to continually throw yourself into the nearest precipitation drainer every time someone says fucking boo. I also refuse to believe you don’t own a pair of submersion shorts and that you have to continually ruin your fucking clothes. Who do you think does the laundry around here?”

Dirk looks at Dave and then looks at Karkat again. “I’m pretty sure that’s me.”

“He has a point, dude. I haven’t washed a shirt in a month.”

“You said that taking my shirts was a human tradition, not bred out of your own disgusting habits.”

“What can I say, I’m a material fucking man. Dirk, get your fucking ass back here.”

He stops dead in the threshold before reluctantly trudging back. The carpet gets noticeably more wet by the minute.

“Date didn’t go well, huh?” Dave says, before he even realises the implication behind his words.

“We broke up.”

To his credit, Karkat makes the effort to fill the ensuing awkward silence. “Alright, you’ve piqued my fucking interest. Those little fuckers are up and ready, ears perked like a particularly curious meowbeast prior to its untimely demise, courtesy of fate itself for being such a nosy prick. How the everloving fuck did you manage to fuck up a relationship that didn’t even exist?”

“I panicked.”

“You...panicked,” he says slowly. Dave can only describe the look on his face as the same look one would give a child who had eaten a live caterpillar.

“Yes," Dirk says.

Karkat promptly gets up to leave. “I did my bit. You're dealing with this asinine assweasel on your own,” he says before stomping out. Honestly, Dave feels he should be the one stomping out here but he elects to keep his mouth shut.

After the door slams, Dirk winces and slowly wrings out the end of his jacket. Dave doesn’t have the heart to complain about the carpet, although that’s partly because the carpet is the ugliest thing to grace Can Town thus far, and it has been graced with John’s mullet.  “What’s an assweasel?” he asks after a moment.

“Man, don’t deflect.”

“Right.” He’s silent for a moment longer. “I did panic though.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“I broke up with him.”

Dave pinches the bridge of his nose, wheezing slightly. His hand crumples the notes he had been writing and the mess is promptly lodged in the darkest corners of his sylladex. There was an old earth saying about counting chickens. Sadly, Dave never had the patience for that and those farm avian creatures are coming back to peck him squarely on the ass.

“You did it,” he says, finally.

“Yes.”

“Why on fucking earth would you do that?” His incredulity is well masked by complete contempt. If he thought Dirk a lesser man, he could swear he saw him flinch. But he still has an ever so slight sliver of respect for his brother. But only just.

Dirk recovers quickly and his posture switches to a more offensive-defensive than a plain cowering-defensive. “Look, I think we all made some miscalculations here,” he reasons, “Or at least you did. I just did damage control, and look where that got me as per fucking usual.”

“Oh come on, you’re not seriously going there, are you?”

“He didn’t even _answer_ me, Dave.”

“What, did you give him a whole five seconds this time before pirouetting straight off the handle of rationality and into the sweet grips of presumptions? There’s better way to reach Conclusion City without jumping all the way fucking there, dude.”

Dirk twitches. Dave notes that he got the nail on the head. He considers briefly informing Rose that Dirk’s future therapy sessions should be dominated by learning the virtue of patience along with relearning the benefits of accepting blame for his own failings instead of projecting them and then internalising the faults of others. He decides against consorting with the enemy. That’s playing with fire.

“I’m telling you, I freaked him out. He probably doesn’t even want to talk to me anymore.” Dirk is pacing now. This is stage four. Only two more stages until he’s tearing his hair out in handfuls, but that’s at least three stages better than diving into the nearest lake. Dave knows from experience, although not necessarily first-hand.

“You say this every time he so much as looks away when you’re expositioning on fucking horses, both literal and figurative. The guy’s not so great with social cues, dipshit. Even I know that and my conversations with him range almost entirely in the b-rated movie zone.”

The silence between them grows and Dave almost wishes Karkat would come back in, even if it was just to fill the silence with expletives. He’d take being called an asinine assweasel any day over watching the turbulent emotions fight for dominance behind Dirk’s shades, his face as impassive as ever. Dave supposes necessary brotherly intuition never really goes away, even once you’re out of the lion’s mouth.

Defeat wins out and Dirk slumps. Dave lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Any more great ideas?” he says, but the grit isn’t there for it to be bitter.

“Just the one.”

 

 

 

Jane pulls off a stiletto, pulling her foot on to her lap to nurse where the hard back of the shoe rubbed her heel raw. It is a considerably hard life keeping up appearances when you range on the shorter side of average and your partner-in-law is an easily seven-foot-tall alien. The growth spurt seemed to happen overnight too. One day, Terezi was standing at an already impressive 5’5 and the next thing Jane looked and she was a towering mass of pure justice.

Said towering mass is leaning in the doorway, the tips of her horns brushing off the frame. “Something smells painful,” she says, the lilt in her voice, as always, resembling a cackle.

“Need I warn you again how I feel about you licking my feet?”

Terezi’s hands go up, mock defensive, as she slides into the room. “I got you the first time.”

“Yet, you manage to ignore me nonetheless.”

“Don’t you think we’ve got bigger gill-beasts to fry, P.I. Crocker?” She says gill-beasts with an air of hilarity. Jane knows her well enough to know she knows damn well what a fish is. However, it still has her straightening up, attentive.

“You say that like we have a case.”

“Perhaps we do.”

Jane watches her warily for a second before sitting back in her chair. “This isn’t another Jack the Slicker case, is it?”

“Now what do you take me for?”

“The kind of woman who’d frame a carapace for her own amusement.”

“You’re good at taking.”

Jane slips off her other shoe, pulling that foot up on to her lap and nursing it in turn. Anyone else’s feet would have scarred at this point but, even if they’re not flashy or exceedingly powerful, Jane supposes her abilities have their uses. The cuts fade under her fingertips. Terezi licks her lips and Jane immediately puts her shoes back on, with a wince. Pride is a terrible thing.

“Will I take more kindly to this case than the last,” she asks, raising an eyebrow behind her red-framed glasses. Terezi’s brow does the same in turn, behind her red-lensed ones.

“Depends, do you still like investigations?” she answers.

“ _Do I_?”

“Do you?”

“ _Do I_?”

“Do you?”

And so it continues.

 

 

 

 

“I thought you’d cry more, to be honest.”

Jake wearily turns his head to Brain Ghost Dirk, face now smushed pleasantly into the carpet. Looking at the stars helps him relax when looking at yet another Dirk most certainly won’t. “Is that me being surprised at myself?”

“Partly. Partly Dirk’s raging god complex,” comes the answer as he hops off the chest of drawers with less than a wobble. “You’ve got to cry, broski. How is he supposed to cope knowing you can cope without him? Although, I’m not sure literally staring into space for two hours counts as coping. The jury’s still firmly out on that one but my gavel is up and ready with premature conviction.”

There’s nothing really to answer so Jake stays silent, turning his face back to the stars. They shimmer as much as old earth stars did but they’ve always seemed bigger and brighter. Perhaps more hopeful. Perhaps less smog. He isn’t sure, but he doesn’t suppose it matters much. His hands slowly untangle from the buttons of his cardigan to reach out, tongue stuck out, at the stars. Just as big as one thumb. As always. Nothing has really changed.

“All I’m saying is you’re moping. That’s no good for you.”

“I thought you wanted me to cry a moment ago?”

“Irony, man.”

“That was ironic?”

“No, but you never really got it, did you?”

“I suppose not,” Jake sighs, rolling on to his stomach with a frown. “I guess I never understand a lot of things. Although me not having my noggin firmly cantered is hardly an unusual situation.”

“That’s the problem,” Brain Ghost Dirk sighs, hunkering down in front of the other with a wry look. Jake’s phone jingles with the tell-tale Year 3000 tune and he grabs it, not breaking Brain Ghost Dirk’s gaze. “You thought you understood me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for saying I'd have the next chapter done in a month and then taking a quarter of a year to finish it. I was discouraged because it's approximately half the length of the previous chapter though I suppose that's to be expected of a filler chapter. The next chapter will likely be longer and more interesting and hopefully will be out an awful lot quicker. 
> 
> This is also now in the realm of canon-divergence thanks to the post canon content. Here is what is different in this universe compared to what we know in canon. 
> 
> -The kingdoms do not exist. Instead post-earth is a sprawling, boundary-less mass of carapaces, trolls and humans with an indeterminate system of governance. But it's probably not space capitalism. 
> 
> -Jane does not take over Crockercorp. Instead of becoming a businesswoman pastry empress, her thirst for power is relegated somewhere with less likelihood of corruption- law enforcement! *comedy laughtrack*. But in all seriousness, she is Canland's regional P.I./detective and works with Terezi to uphold a semblance of law, but it's not really necessary as the violent crime rate is surprisingly low. Welcome to paradise. 
> 
> -Similarly, Jake does not take over Skaianet. He does still invent and make things however, but does not head an established company. 
> 
> -The population is not all directly descended from the surviving human, troll and carapace population. The ectobiology machine was used instead to obtain and create a population with a much larger gene pool. 
> 
> -The kids and trolls mostly reside in a sprawling communal living quarters but have separate units that they live in. Jake lives at the very tip-top of the building. I will draw out and provide a map for the next chapter.


	3. the one with the ex boyfriend date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Rose becomes suspicious and Dirk and Jake go on a date (sort of)
> 
> (This chapter contains implied suicide of god-tiers referenced in a dismissive manner and one mention of accidental mistreatment of an autistic character)

TT: Yo.

TT: Sorry for running out on you earlier. I had errands to attend to. 

TT: And by errands I mean my body was much in need of some self-flagellation in the least sexual way possible and it just couldn’t wait.

TT: Believe me I tried. 

TT: My need to berate myself constantly is like a disgruntled middle-aged customer in our local canstop. 

TT: No, Barbara, I don’t have time to whip you right now. Please speak to the manager which just so happens to be my broken mind. 

TT: I don’t think it’s qualified, if you ask me. It’s got some serious nepotism going on with its good friends self-hatred and low self esteem.

TT: They get all the goods around these parts. Lucky fucks. 

TT: Anyway.

TT: We should hang out. 

TT: Sorry, correction. I want to hang out with you. 

TT: This is a mutual decision. Managing Director Brain of Dirk Strider doesn’t have jack shit to do with your haymaker or whatever you call it these days. 

TT: Haymaker was a good word. Did I ever tell you that? It’s pretty fucking...nifty. 

TT: I’ll stop sucking up now. 

TT: We could watch a movie. I’m not promising I’ll sit through Indiana Jones again but I’m more than willing to brave some Kurosawa for you. 

TT: Not that it would be much of a compromise for me. All the action for you, all the dubious cultural history of the blade for me. 

TT: And I get to spend time with my best bro, of course, which is always the main thrill. 

TT: Fuck. 

TT: You know what I still haven’t managed to do? Code that fucking delete button for Pesterchum. 

TT: I tried to get Rolal in on it but, let’s face it, she just wants to watch me suffer. 

TT: She still hasn’t let me live down the Great Typo Situation of PCT 4. 

TT: You make one freudian slip and next thing you know you can’t BRB without being propositioned. 

TT: It’s fuckin’ hell, I tell you. 

TT: Yeah, you’re definitely ignoring me aren’t you. 

GT: Im not ignoring you!

GT: Gee willikers strider let a man read the first surge before you go spouting more blatherings at him!

TT: Sorry. 

GT: No er. Its quite alright. 

GT: You wanted to rendezvous with me?

TT: When you put it like that, it sounds nefarious. 

GT: Well it would hardly be the first time! *Tugs collar…*

TT: I guess. 

TT: …

GT: …

TT: Six tomorrow?

GT: You got it!!

TT: Then it’s a date. 

\-- golgothasTerror has ceased pestering timaeusTestified \--

TT: Fuck.

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m going to kick his ass,” Jade says, between mouthfuls of lettuce.

Rose has long since become accustomed to the weird eating habits of the majority of the people she associates with. The ones who never had parents are the worst, naturally; Jade, Jake, Roxy and Dirk have no qualms about taking massive bites out of things that are not supposed to be eaten that way. Dave, whose parental guidance was dubious at best, can sometimes be spotted eating a banana sideways, like corn on the cob, never breaking Rose’s gaze. She’s still uncertain if this is because he knows how inexplicable she finds the others’ eating habits and wants to be included, or if he’s just that desperate for her not to throw phallic comparisons his direction. Not that it stops her in the slightest.

Currently, Jade is eating a lettuce whole out of her hands. This isn’t even surprising any more so Rose just shifts so she can cross her legs, a difficult task seeing as Jade has her legs propped up on her lap. “Whose ass is this?”

“Jake ate _all_ my cherry swirl, Rose. He _knows_ that’s my favourite too! Now we’re just stuck with that gross banana one!” She sticks out her tongue, accompanied with a small bluh sound before taking another bite of lettuce. Her chewing is almost endearingly loud and frustrated.

“I’m fairly certain that banana ice-cream is three years old. I’d advise against succumbing to its archaic, manufactured sweetness.”

“Duh, I mean it’s definitely gross if it’s still here considering my cherry swirl can’t last a week!”

“I take it that you’re planning to seek your revenge out on him for this betrayal?”

Jade’s ears twitch as she comically tilts her head to one side. “Jake? Don’t be silly! He might be a big ice-cream thief but I guess he needs it more than me. Did Dave not tell you?”

That earns an eyebrow raise. She reaches out and steals an unchewed piece of lettuce, popping it into her mouth. Lettuce still tastes like solid water: firmly undesirable. “It seems he’s kept me out of the loop once again. I’ve encouraged him to discuss things with me on numerous occasions but it’s just impossible to get through to him.” A deep, mock sigh is offered between Jade’s giggles. “I’m simply overflowing with sisterly concern for his wellbeing.”

“Well if it makes you feel any better, Dave didn’t tell me either!” Jade says, grinning widely as she elbows Rose just a tad bit too hard. “Karkat woke me up blowing up my phone. Metaphorically! He hasn’t broken our no explosions streak yet.”

“How many days are we on now?”

“Seventeen and counting!”

“A new record. What did he want?”

“Who?”

“Karkat.”

“Oh!! Well get this! He told me Dirk broke up with him!”

“Fascinating. Does Dave know Dirk was dating Karkat in the first place? No wonder he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Not Karkat, silly. He broke up with Jake!”

That earns a higher brow raise, despite being the obvious conclusion. Rose doesn’t think she takes too much interest in gossip or the relationships of those around her. When it comes to Dave, it’s too funny to wind him up; sometimes he acts like, after twelve years, his relationship with Karkat is still riddled with secrecy. There’s nothing inconspicuous about it, however, when over a decade later Dave’s still looking at him across the room like a preteen with a crush. Rose supposes it’s rather sweet when she’s not using it to her advantage.

Other than that, she has little interest in the personal relationships of anyone else. Personally she finds her own relationship to be the most intriguing. If Dave was more observant, which he thankfully isn’t, he’d have plenty of middle school sweetheart-esque ammo to use on her too with how she catches herself watching Kanaya sometimes. It’s rather sappy but she’s entitled to sappy.

But she has to admit, this is catching her interest. If there’s anyone more secretive than Dave about their painfully obvious romantic exploits, it’s Dirk (and Jake, but only by association it seems). Throughout numerous pseudo-counselling sessions, she feels she’s picked Jake’s mind enough for even that enigma to become routine and while she appreciates the many enlightening conversations she can have with him concerning the extents of psychological philosophy, Greek or otherwise, Dirk’s nowhere near as easy to tease. Any attempts to pry or meddle are met with a stone wall of disinterest and if she tries to pry past that, which she can and will when needs must, there are only two results; earnestness or Dirk returning three hours later covered in seaweed.

But she doesn’t have to be looking or particularly interested to pick up on how Dirk is really no different to her and Dave when it comes to all of this. The situation is unthinkable. Something is afoot.

“How interesting,” is all she says for now.

 

 

 

 

 

“I thought you didn’t like milk?”

Dirk looks up from the cherry swirl ice-cream, spoon limply hanging out of his mouth. Roxy leans on the doorframe of the communal kitchen, eyebrow quirked and hands on her hips. If a camera were to go off right now, she would insist that she’s not a model.

“I don’t.”

“Ice-cream’s, like, frozen milk, dumbass.”

She slides into the seat next to him, propping her feet up on his lap. He doesn’t flinch, even internally, like he used to. He’s slowly become accustomed to no longer needing to be wary about letting her invade his personal space. It’s at least one improvement in one of his interpersonal relationships that he can get behind. “I’m pretty sure it’s frozen cream, hence the name.”

“What d’you think cream is? Dirk, it’s all from cows. It’s all connected.”

“Cows. Those are the big, fat horses right?”

She elbows him in jest. It’s less funny pulling shit with Roxy when she’s well aware that he’s playing a part. The Future Man and his lack of animal knowledge is always a sure fire way to get people laughing even if it’s at his expense. Sometimes there’s bad days so a guy’s just got to lighten the mood, and he’s never had much of a way of doing it. Calling bees tiny buzzing seagulls never fails.

“Sooo,” she says, after a few minutes of comfortable silence. Dirk puts the spoon down on the table and she takes it immediately, drying it in his jeans before scooping the ice-cream for herself.

“So?”

“Trouble in paradise?"

“When is there not trouble in paradise?” Dirk says, resting his chin on the palm of his hand. “For an apparently celestial abode this place sure has its fair share of bullfuckery. I hear there was some carapace murder spree last month.”

Roxy scoffs around a mouthful of cherry swirl. “You mean TZ hounding the local chess village with outdated plots from Alternian Agatha Christy? Yeah right, nothing that wild happens around here. I’d know. I get all the goss. If you know what I mean.”

It’s accompanied by a wink. Dirk stares. “Was that supposed to be an innuendo because I don’t get it and you know me and innuendos. I’m the fucking king of poorly executed sex jokes.”

“You’re the king of poor all of those individually too. Poor sex, poor jokes, poor executions-” He elbows her back and she snorts around the spoon. “Just kidding! But speaking of all that, I was talking about Jake.”

He elects to ignore the ‘speaking of all that’ part. “I broke up with him.”

“Dirky, you gotta be dating someone before you can dump them. That’s like, rule numero uno of the break ups.”

“I’m a special kind of stupid.”

“Well duh,” she says, messing up his freshly washed hair, “I knew that already, genius.”

 

 

 

  


Social cues are a curious thing. There are formulated responses to typical questions, such as how it’s a social faux pas to answer “how are you?” with anything other than positive assurances. Smiling is considered to be more polite than remaining neutral, no matter how hard your face hurts. Eye contact is considered a necessity. That’s one of the weirder ones, in Jake’s humble opinion. He can recall Rose questioning his sincerity before marking it down to anxiety in her file, and after extensive sessions with results only totalling in severe migraines, she pulled him aside to divulge that really, she wasn’t a qualified psychologist and it was a rather poor choice to put her in charge of the collective mental health of several rather disturbed and enigmatic teenagers. Personally, he’s always found her helpful though he must admit it’s a lot easier to be sincere when his face isn’t being held though.

If Jake doesn’t know social cues on a good day, he definitely doesn’t know what one is supposed to do when on a date with their ex boyfriend. Specifically, how close you’re supposed to sit on the sofa.

The communal living area is large enough to host everyone with a screen big enough to broadcast whatever movie the general consensus agree to watching. Every second Wednesday is designated movie night and other than that the room is a free for all. It took Jake a few months to realise that there were even social cues with that and if two (or sometimes three) people were alone in the room watching PS. I Love You, he shouldn’t barge in and make a nuisance of himself. He prides himself in having learnt this rule sooner than some other people. Jade still frequently comes in during the scary parts of The Labyrinth and situates herself right between the two of them, snug and arguably smug.

One can get up close and personal with their friends during movie evenings and Jake would be lying if he said he and Dirk hadn’t got more than that on occasion. (Possibly less often than Dirk would like. Jake’s forever swatting his hands away during the good parts of The Mummy.)

But this is a new level of socially awkward that even Jake isn’t accustomed to. He’s never had an ex boyfriend that he wasn’t sort of making out with frequently anyway before. He’s barely had an ex boyfriend at all when it comes down to it. He’s almost certain exes don’t watch movies together without nefarious intentions at all, actually, but that’s obviously not what Dirk has in mind.

Unless it was. Though they’re already twenty minutes into Seven Samurai and Jake may be pressed against the far arm of the sofa but he’s still well within reach of Dirk’s wandering hands if he was so inclined. It’s really peculiar that Jake finds himself missing squirming away distractions during the pivotal cinematic scenes. He curls up a little more, tucking his knees under his chin. He dressed up reasonably well, rooted out the bow tie as he always does for dates, but that doesn’t mean he wore shoes. That would just be daft.

Dirk is leaning on the other arm, elbow propped up and his chin resting in his hand. For someone who’d got to pick the movie for once (an annual occasion generally, but Jake can make exceptions under odd circumstances), he seems awfully sullen. Jake finds his mouth turning down to match Dirk’s before he shakes himself out of it.

They’re watching a movie! Considering it’s not only a cultural classic but also right down Dirk Strider’s ally, there’s no reason for the other to be sulking and frankly it’s more distracting than any wandering digits could be. He edges a little closer to Dirk, just within range to prod him in the side. He jumps, as ticklish as always and shoots Jake a look; not a glare or even a disgruntled look, more surprised and uneasy, like he’d rather be anywhere else. He’s almost offended. It’s not like it was Dirk’s choice to inexplicably invite him out or anything.

“Why are you such a sourpuss?” he presses, eyebrows furrowed.

“I’m not,” Dirk says, quicker than necessary.

“Are so, you look like you’re waiting for the ground to swallow you clean up!”

“Believe me, vore is the last thing on my mind right now.”

Jake stares. Dirk drags a hand down his face. Subtle coughs are exchanged.

“Anyways. Lighten up? You’d swear you didn’t want to be here or something!”

“Of course I want to be here,” Dirk says, turning his head back to the screen.

Jake purses his lips again before settling back against the sofa. He remains unconvinced. Dirk is acting strangely, or at least strangely for Dirk. To be honest, if you’d asked Jake a week ago if Dirk was going to randomly decide they should date other people, he would have laughed at you. It’s not like either of them are expressly equipped for venturing out into the wider world of dating. Jake hears it’s not quite like the movies any more. While the textually discussing matters firsts (or forever) sounds very appealing, the digital methods of disqualifying people sound immensely difficult.

Besides, what’s he supposed to say to a potential future mate? You don’t just explain that you’re a virtually immortal demigod who, if you think too carefully about it, can likely alter the fabric of reality. That’s not the sort of thing you reveal over a bowl of pasta. How would either of them ever be ready for dating? Dirk values company and attention far more than him, but that doesn’t mean he’s socially capable for the dating circle.

“Of course he’s not, but try telling him that,” comes Brain Ghost Dirk’s voice in his ear. Jake tries not to shudder and draw attention to himself.

He might not be ready, but surely this is his choice? Whether or not Jake thinks he’s ready is completely irrelevant. Even if Dirk truly isn’t ready for dating, it’s his mistake to make and really, what can Jake say? It was never his choice to be, for lack of a better word, discarded suddenly but it’s not something he has any control over.

“Oh come on. You’re still thinking he’s serious?”

Well, he’s explicitly trying not to think of it. The true implications of Dirk dating other people are being firmly buried in Jake’s mind to deal with once he processes it properly. He has all of eternity to figure out how that affects him.

“You should kiss him.”

“What?”

Dirk turns to look at him and Jake shrinks into his seat, face slowly getting red. He hadn’t meant to say that outloud at all, let alone at such a loud volume.

“They’re executing the prisoner. It’s a bad move, I guess,” Dirk says, the confusion evident on his face.

“Oh erm. Righto.”

“Haven’t we watched this before?”

“Yes I just forgot!”

Dirk doesn’t really look convinced but after an awkward stare down, which does nothing to help the colour growing in Jake’s cheeks, he relents and turns back to the television.

“Just man up and kiss him,” Brain Ghost Dirk repeats, leaning over the back of the sofa to rest his arms on Jake’s head. He can almost feel the phantom pressure, like gravity has increased.

“You know as well as I do that this is all some colossal fuck up, Dirk Strider style.”

But does he? Jake would hardly bet anything on it. Sure, it came out of nowhere and he’s never seen someone in Hollywood ask their ex on a date immediately after breaking it off, but surely it’s just as viable that Dirk’s simply grown tired of him? Brain Ghost Dirk scoffs before Jake can deflate.

“Do you really think that? Give yourself some credit at least. We’ve been all over you like a rash for over a decade and you think he’s over it just like that?”

That’s a fair point. Dirk is a man of conviction and routine, which Jake envies to a large degree. Even if Jake had made some drastic error, he wouldn’t just quit. He’s not so oblivious that he wouldn’t have noticed if the other had been having doubts, right? But, even if this is a mistake, it’s not like he can exactly conceive how one would tell someone they wanted to date other people as a mistake. It’s hardly Hollywood but it might pass as a sit-com.

“Who cares? Just kiss him before the sword fighting gets good.”

Jake stiffens, hardening his resolve. He can do this. He could also simply question Dirk’s motives but why would he? They’ve gotten this far without asking questions.

He braces himself and turns around, shifting closer as he leans in, lips puckered, eyes closed-

His face plants straight into the arm of the sofa as Dirk stands up, straight and rigid.

“I’m going to get popcorn,” he says stiffly over Jake’s muffled noises into the upholstery. By the time Jake manages to raise his head, Dirk is gone. He looks at Brain Ghost Dirk, accusingly, but all the other does is shrug.

“What can I say, the bullshit never stops coming.”

 

 

 

 

“A pity kiss,” Dave repeats, looking witheringly at Karkat from across the table, phone trapped between his ear and shoulder.

  
“This is what happens when you meddle,” Karkat says, smugly turning a page in his book. Dave wishes he could argue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for not getting this out sooner, but at least now I have a chapter plan so writing the rest shouldn't take me quite as long. 
> 
> Things to note: Jade so doesn't approve of Dirk. She's going to let Jake make his own decisions but she's going to be there, watching. Thus Dirk is still a little on edge around her. He definitely shouldn't have eaten her ice-cream
> 
> Also time is measured as Post Can Town's creation so the year is currently PCT 9. April 14th is New Year's Day. 
> 
> The Typo Incident of PCT 4 was Dirk accidentally typing "be back in a sex" instead of sec. He still can't live it down, but only because he continues to get worked up about it.
> 
> I forgot to draw the map of the communal living area but I'm working on it.


	4. the one with the platonic dialogues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where Dirk won't leave his room and Terezi looks for a fish
> 
> (This chapter contains implied suicide of god-tiers referenced in a dismissive manner and sexual references)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey it's almost a year since I started this and I still have 6 chapters to go. I'm really slow and unpredictable, as you may have noticed, but I'm trying. 
> 
> I should mention that suicide is treated lightly by the characters because death no longer has much meaning to them. Dirk drowning himself is an unhealthy method of coping with transient and permenant problems as it causes his mind to shut down for a while so he can find peace. It's obviously unhealthy but isn't handled as well as it probably should be by everyone else as he's not going to actually die. This is by no means an attempt by me to make light of suicide in real life.
> 
> Also, my HS tumblr is dirkscourses and my personal is jakeenglishapologist if anyone wants to hmu

With how often Dave has found himself in the much unwanted predicament of rapping his knuckles on Dirk’s door as of late, he’s only currently resisting the temptation to slip the bill for his medical expenses incurred by the bruising under Dirk’s perpetually locked door. Though it does beat drowning himself in the nearest lake, Dave doesn’t want to be too hasty in declaring it progress.

What is progress, however, is Dirk answering on the sixth knock, on the fourth day. Of course, it’s only to say “Come in,” through a locked door, without the additional grace of unlocking it that Dave needs.

“Come in? Oh cool, I never thought of that. I’ve just been standing out here rapping my knuckles raw like some recessionary builder whose hammer got repossessed by the Bank of America to pay for his yacht loan. The bastard now has to hammer nails for the pictures of his boat to go on his boat with his bare fists. Like a fuckin’ animal. Hey, bro, did you ever wonder why those guys keep pictures of their boats on their damn boats? Maybe they have a problem. Like it’s some disease you get once you buy a yacht that you forget what it looks like unless you remind yourself and all your yacht buddies constantly. You wake up in the middle of the night and you’re like, ‘Fuck man, why is my entire bed swaying?’ And, damn, you’re fucking confused for a bit until you look up and, like the grace of some ancient sea god, you’ve taped a picture of the S.S. Douchebag to the ceiling to remind yourself that you’re the kind of fucker who buys a boat-”

The door opens inward. “Poseidon,” Dirk says simply.

His hair is array and a mess of bed curls and days old hair gel. He looks tired, but the kind of tired you get from sleeping too much and trying to force yourself to sleep through the day. Dave remembers it from the meteor. Three years passes by very slowly. Dave is acutely aware that Dirk spent a lot longer, a lot more alone. Four days of silence and solitude is nothing to him. He still looks like a wreck though.

“Is he one of those philosophers you’ve got a cultural boner for?” Dave asks, pushing into the room. Which is a mess, but that’s not necessarily a bad sign. It’s just a sign that Dirk isn’t as weirdly clean as he tries to make himself out to be.

“The Greek god of the sea,” Dirk corrects.

“So, you’ve just got a boner for the little mermaid’s dad. Got it.”

“He’s not-” Dirk cuts himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s playing right into Dave’s hands. “What do you want?”

“Can a guy not want to see his brother not wallowing in his own feces like a particularly rabid raccoon, post-trash can break up? You know how those fuckers get when you buy the fastenable lids. It’s like you’re breaking their little scene hearts.”

“Scene hearts.”

“Raccoon tails, keep up. I would have pinned you for having a phase.”

“I don’t have phases,” Dirk says, crossing his arms.

“Yeah yeah, you are who you are and other quotes of dubiously Hot Topic derivation. Anyway, I’m calling time-out on this bullshit, stat. You need to leave your room.”

If there’s one thing Dave has learned from the last few years, is that the big brother shtick works wonders. Whatever tiny bit of his gut still twists at the link between the man who raised him and the shmuck that lives in his spare room and eats all the horse-shoes out of the communal lucky charms, Dave knows there’s an innumerous-times big part of Dirk that puts him on a pedestal. Dirk may not have been raised by some dubiously similar bro with wicked shades and excellent film theory, but he has a convincing imagination.

The play doesn’t fail. “Why?” Dirk asks, almost petulantly.

“Because it’s not healthy.”

Dirk raises a brow. “And what is health?”

“What?”

“How exactly would one define health? If you’re making demands for the sake of my so-called health, doesn’t a dude at least have the right to know what you mean by it?”

Dave distinctly feels uneasy. “I mean, like, it’s not healthy to be sitting in here festering like a week old sandwich. You need to get out and talk to people.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Whatever. Health is the opposite of sick. Happy?”

“The definition can’t be the opposite of its opposite. How would you define sick then? The opposite of health?”

“Yeah, I guess?”

“Bullshit. Without inherent knowledge of the definitions of those words through the acquisition of language usage in context while you were throwing up saltine crackers in your high chair, you wouldn’t know the difference between that and your own dick.”

“My dick is pretty sick.”

“I’ll take your word for that and redirect the conversation, like, last week.”

“Okay so,” Dave sits on the bed, crossing his legs and rubbing his face slightly. “Health is, like...fuck, you’re being difficult, you know that? And you being difficult is bad for my health. Which is like, feeling good in yourself or some shit.”

“Hm.”

“Is that it? Just hm?”

Dirk practically drops into the swivel chair across  the room. It rolls along the ground slightly with a creak as he straddles it. “I hear coke makes you feel good, if that’s where we’re going.”

“I’ve got the sneaking feeling you’re not talking about soda.”

“No. Cola is fuckin’ gross. You know me better than that.” Dirk moves a little closer by pushing himself along the ground with his toes. There’s something glinting in his bagged eyes. “Drugs. We could go for alcohol either, for a more familiar point of reference.”

“Or weed,” Dave supplies helpfully. He knows how that works too. He ate breakfast cereal out of a bong once as a kid.

“Weed’s fucking fake,” Dirk says. “Point being, people take shit like that to make themselves feel better. Self-medicating if you will. Are they healthy?”

“The health benefits of devil lettuce hadn’t been decided before the neptunian siege. Or was it jupiterian?”

“Then alcohol.”

“No.”

“See,” Dirk says, sitting back. “Feeling better does not define health. Try again.”

Dave groans, dragging his hand right down his face. “Why do I need to pull out a dictionary just to show some brotherly care to you? Are you that emotionally stunted?”

“To define is to limit.”

“Yeah. Okay, that definitely explains more than your weird obsession with prescribed literature for high school English.” Dave flops back on the bed, hitting his head on something hard. He lifts his head slightly to observe the hairbrush, partially covered by the duvet. Today is so not his day. He de-captchas his phone, hurriedly searching the definition of health. Say what you want about Can-Town, but the wireless speeds are a godsend. “The level of functional and metabolic efficiency of a living organism. That’s you, bee-tee-double-ewe.”

“It would be just as easy to say by the way.”

“But I didn’t.”

Dirk crosses his arms over the back of the chair, rocking a little. “I’m functioning fine. Do you see anything physically wrong with me?”

“It looks like you pricked your finger on one of your projects and fell into a deep slumber. It’s the year 3000 actually. The song did go multi-platinum.”

A withering look. “That doesn’t change what I’m saying. My functional and metabolic efficiency could be working at 100%, within the walls of this room. How is staying in here unhealthy if it has the potential to not affect my physical functioning?”

“Mental functioning then.”

“State of mind can be altered. Most people with serious problems don’t believe they have problems-”

“You’re painfully self-aware. Teach me your ways.”

“-but is your mind truly unhealthy if it believes itself to be healthy and it hinges on human understanding to be so? If other brains are defining the definition of health differently, can one ever actually have a healthy brain by any widely held standards. Can it ever be unhealthy? Can you yourself not define your own health and if not then whose definition of health can you use to define your own health-”

“Oh my fucking god. This is some Plato shit, isn’t it?” Dave groans before burying his face in a pillow. “I’m that patricidal fucker and you’re Socrates. You know, I’d cross the road to get away from Socrates if I saw him coming. I bet that guy had no friends in Ancient Greece. I bet his brother didn’t give a shit if he rotted away into some low fat yoghurt in his sandals.”

“Euthyphro was about holiness, not health,” Dirk says, but he isn’t denying the ruse. Dave preferred him with the door locked.

“Then for the love of all that is good and holy, shut the fuck up. And don’t you dare ask me to define holy because I swear I’ll use my time powers for evil to go back and send the Trojan horse in a few years early.”

“That was-” Dirk stops himself. It’s not worth it. “What do you actually want, Dave?”

“Here, look at this.”

Dave thrusts the phone in Dirk’s face. He squints, trying to focus on the small text of the app. Dubious magenta hearts fill the screen with various prompts. It’s unnerving and Dirk looks over the screen at Dave again.

“What is this?” he asks, his lips pulling down.

“Grindr,” Dave says, keeping a straight face until Dirk’s brow becomes too furrowed in confusion to continue. “Okay, okay, it’s not actually Grindr. It’s like a knock-off app. Way less traction, no less attraction if you catch my drift. I’m setting you up small. I don’t want to knock you in with the big fish straight away. There are plenty of fish in the sea but you know what happens when there are too many fish, bro? You get your toes chewed off by some feisty piranhas before you can say whether or not you’re a verse.”

“...I think you overestimate the prevalence of foot fetishes.”

“Anyway, I’m setting you up a profile.”

Dirk’s eyes dart up from the screen again, brows still furrowed in a thick line. “Why?”

“To hook you up? Hey, I know I’m not birdy go lucky but I can still be one hell of a wingman. Okay, that was a shit joke, but you know what I’m saying. What do you know, you might even take a shower for your profile picture.”

“No, I mean why are you trying to hook me up,” Dirk clarifies. His look has changed from confusion to downright uncertainty. There is a slight difference between these two looks. “What about Jake?”

Dave takes his phone back, pushing Dirk’s own into his hands instead. “Leave that to me. What are wingmen for?”.

 

 

  


At the knock on her door, Rose falters in her writing, looking up from her notepad to regard Jake. He’s lying back on her sofa, staring at the ceiling with his hands folded in his lap. He startles too, craning his neck to look back at her, stopping mid sentence which is decidedly a rarity. It’s hard to get him to stop even after a sentence is finished these days.

At the start, it wasn’t nearly as easy to draw words out of him. The first five months in the new world made it impossible to drag any more than “I’m fine, honest,” out of him, no matter how many of these pseudo-therapy sessions she tried to arrange. It wasn’t until one day, mid breakfast, Kanaya leaned across her bowl of cereal to press a slightly toothed kiss, as is always the was with Kanaya, to her forehead, that Jake started to open up. After a week of talking, she had him pegged as someone who’s learned the hard way not to make assumptions about people’s motives.

She waits for him to sit up and fix his sweater (and rub his eyes on the sleeves) before moving to open the door. Jane stands, slightly stiffly, in the doorway, with Terezi looming over her and sporting a manic grin. Rose steps out of the way, her curiosity piqued but not showing as she lets them enter the room.

“Janey!” Jake crows, his spirits lifted somewhat artificially. He twists around in his seat to peer over the back of the couch at the two of them as they enter. “It sure has been eons since you last jeepersed my peepers. You look different though, did you do something with your hair?”

“I’m wearing a fake mustache,” she says, witheringly.

Jake nods solemnly. “That must be it. Zooterkins look at the time! I better be making myself scarce I mean I certainly wouldn’t like to be running my mouth for too long like some churlish chimp anyway.” He hops over the back of the sofa, only to stumble slightly when his ankle gives way. He pops back up into Rose’s view in an instant though, only slightly red faced.

“Do you want to continue tomorrow then?” she asks, patiently though not entirely unaffected.

“Er. That sounds a treat! I’ll hit you up henceforth then, Miss Lalonde! I guess I’ll see you alligators later!” With that and an awkward shuffle, Jake exits for all of two seconds before his head reappears around the door frame. “Or women I guess. If you don’t take too kindly to your likeness being compared to aquatic toothed yolkies.” And he’s gone.

Rose releases a breath, crossing her legs and smoothing out her skirt before regarding Jane and Terezi again. Or at least Jane as her partner appears seeking out the Newton’s cradle on the lounge table. She tries not to curl her nose as Terezi’s tongue finds its way around one of the balls, releasing it and then sniffing curiously at the resounding impact.

“Did you read my pamphlet on communication? I didn’t painstakingly staple all those for the good of my health, you know. The relaxing element to it was just a, how do you say, happy accident.”

Jane crosses her arms, glancing at the door before glancing back to Rose. “Really I don’t see why those are still necessary! Everything’s been just peachy keen for as long as I can remember so really I think continuing to read those old things would be redundant!”

“Perhaps a more thorough read could be recommended? I’m but one woman, you know.”

“A certain Mr. Strider has his cruddy copy dog eared and highlighted and I don’t see it doing him much use!”

“Ah,” Rose says, smiling thinly, “Well some people are lost causes.”

With a click of her tongue, Jane closes the door shut with her foot. She subsequently leans up against it, arms still folded as her gaze follows Terezi’s exploits. Not that the other has done much else but manage to throw the locomotion of the Newton’s cradle off balance and snicker to herself at the resulting chaos. Rose makes a mental reminder to find the disinfectant, for later hygiene requirements.

“Now, I know I owe the honour of our finest legislators in my dwelling for some reason or another. You did however interrupt my scheduled time as supportive female character, existing as part of the narrative solely to engage with typical boy drama, so I do hope it’s a good reason.”

“Scheduled time as who now?” Jane says, her face pulling several different ways before she decides that it’s best that she don’t even ask. “Well, yes, it is apparently incredibly important. You see-”

“We’re on a case,” Terezi interjects, finally stepping away from the Newton’s cradle once it is successfully destroyed, in multiple pieces on the ground, glistening with saliva.

“Are you in need of an impartial adjudicator?” Rose asks, leaning forward to rest her chin on her hand, elbow on knee. “I’m sure I can oblige.”

Terezi grins. “As tasteful as your attempts at playing His Honorable Tyranny are, we’re looking for a slimy fugitive from justice first.” A wink. “Though we’ll be sure to take you up on your offer later, Lavender.”

“A slimy fugitive, hm?” Rose says, looking Jane’s way. Jane shrugs, clearly no wiser than her about the whole situation. “How slimy are we talking about here, and in what manner of speaking? I don’t think you’ll find many slick talkers down here. I specialise in a different kind of emotional hindrance.”

“No, I’m talking slimy. Like one of your submerged nibblers.”

“A fish,” Jane corrects.

“A slimy bastard,” Terezi corrects once more, “He can’t run from the law for long.”

“Forgive me if I’m taking you up wrong,” Rose says, finding even herself growing slightly weary with this whole thing, “But are you actually looking for a fish?”

“Yes,” Terezi says. Jane groans.

“You said this was a real case!”

“No, I said I wasn’t falsely accusing a carapace of serial murder for my amusement. There’s a difference.”

“There’s a pet store nearby, you know,” Rose interrupts, standing. People who understand of the basic art of communication know that someone standing mid-conversation is a signal to go. But Rose is suspicious that Terezi ate her copy of the manual. “Though I would have taken you more for a lizard person.”

“Yeah,” Terezi says, before winking once more, “But I’ve got bigger fish to fry now.”

 

 

 

\-- turntechGodhead has began pestering golgothasTerror \--

TG: yo

TG: you there

TG: i have some serious business to share with you

TG: this is seriously serious

TG: like

TG: so serious that even my serious has got serious on it with a side order of a serious salad for our vegan friends back home

TG: this business is like the most serious seriousness youve ever laid your eyes on

TG: man you wont know what hit you

TG: this business is so serious its wearing a suit and tie and trying to sell you real estate

TG: no dude i dont want to buy a cabin in nebraska 

TG: if nebraska even exists in this hypothetical situation where serious business is a personified real estate agent

TG: do we have can land nebraska 

TG: i fucking hope not

TG: i dont know what nebraska was like in nineteen oh whatever the fuck or wherever youre from but in the buttfuck year of 2009 it was pretty lame

TG: so lame

TG: lamer than the personification of this serious business im trying to land on you trying to hook line and sinker me into growing out my beard and running a goat farm

TG: hey

TG: do you think i could rock a beard

TG: i mean i know i could rock the goats but a beard is tricky

TG: you gotta be a certain kind of guy to rock a beard and i dont know if im ready to make those sorts of adjustments to my winning personality

TG: i got a good thing going here

TG: a beard would be skating on very thin ice

TG: beards go straight into that category of things like mullets and marmite

TG: beards: you either love em or you hate em

TG: where do you stand on beards english

TG: you seem like a mustache kind of guy to me

GT: Do you think so?? Ive been trying to grow myself one of those fellas for eons but i just cant get a handle on it. 

TG: oh hey

TG: no dude you should totally grow a mustache

TG: im pretty sure dirk still has his weird hair growth supplements in the cabinet if you want to go double oh and steal while hes moping

TG: i probably shouldnt have told him why my bro always wore that shitty hat

GT: Strider is moping??

TG: oh yeah i forgot

TG: serious business

GT: Heavens is something the matter with strider? Has he been injured??

TG: no

GT: Is he ill??

TG: no

GT: Whats this serious business then!

TG: here rate this

-turntechGodhead has sent an image!-

GT: ...er.

GT: Is that dirk?

TG: unless squirtle has a rl humansona yeah thats dirk

GT: Why is he shirtless?

TG: have you never seen him shirtless before

TG: this is more serious than i thought

GT: Of course ive seen him shirtless!!!

GT: I mean.

GT: Er. *Fumbles for kerchief.*

TG: hands you a fuckin tissue or something i guess

TG: back to business

GT: I fail to see whats so serious about this business of yours! Is strider in some odd shirtless predicament thats left him bed bound??

TG: dude no

TG: i assure you his dumb shirts are intact despite warning signs

TG: he needs you to give him the thumbs up on this pic

GT: Not that im not flattered that my opinion apparently holds so much weight but why exactly do i need to do that?

TG: its for his dating profile

GT: ...oh.

TG: oh

GT: Oh! Apologies i mean thats terrific? Im certainly incredibly chuffed that hes hit the ground running on the whole love making front!

TG: uh

TG: sure

TG: anyways im sure hed appreciate your feedback on it

TG: theres only so much i can do on this front before rose physically manifests at our coffee table to enlighten me about the electra complex again

TG: ugh

GT: I find miss lalondes presence a constant breath of fresh air actually!

TG: you wouldnt be saying that if you werent birthed from your own loins or whatever

TG: anyway message dirk

TG: are you doing it

TG: english

GT: Im working on it! Dont be such a pushy polly!

TG: my name is dave so im already halfway there

GT: I dont know what im supposed to say...fudgesickles this shouldnt be so gruelling!!

TG: dw i got your number

TG: just say

TG: dude

TG: i like the picture

TG: 10/10 would date again

 

\-- golgothasTerror has began pestering timaeusTestified \--

GT: Dude!

GT: I like the picture!

GT: 10/10 would date again!

TT: ...What?

TT: What picture?

GT: Erm. Your one to attract potential new suitors! I was recently made aware of its existence and i must say you paint a swell one. 

TT: Oh. 

TT: You saw that?

GT: Yessir! The whole shebang! Its really a riveting show a fella would want to be mad not to take you up on the offer. 

GT: Though whats the dealio about virtue in the description thingymabobber?

TT: That’s...to discourage people.

TT: It’s harder to define virtue than to immediately begin a cycle of meaningless small talk. 

TT: Effort is required. 

GT: Oh its not so bad! Virtue hm id say that is being an all round swell guy! Always doing whats right and helping others and maybe keeping a smidgen of faith around him too! Hows that?

TT: No, that’s

TT: . . .

TT: Yeah. 

TT: You got it. 


	5. the one where rose finds out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which dirk can't date, jake can't type, and dave can't not fuck up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twice in a month? who thought they'd live to see the day
> 
> also we're halfway through now so things get a little more interesting after this

\-- golgothasTerror began pestering timaeusTestified \--

GT: Bro.  
GT: Did you perchance get an invitation to attend a gathering later tonight?  
TT: No.  
TT: Why?  
GT: Rats! See ive been told to attend a gathering and honestly it might seem like monkeys peanuts but i cant help but wish i knew who else was going. Im not exactly in the mood for a huge hullabaloo if you catch my drift.  
TT: Consider it caught.  
TT: That drift is firmly captured in my fishing net.  
TT: It’s not exactly what I was hoping for. I mean, I’ve been out here for days. My intentions were to catch something a little more substantial or at least more appetising than a drift.  
TT: But it’s of importance.  
TT: The children will just have to go without fish for another night.  
TT: Such is fate.  
GT: See you get me.  
GT: I mean i feel lousy for it but im honestly just so pooped!  
GT: Not that ive exactly done much deserving of such exhaustion unless a fellow can beef up on lollygagging around with an excess of dairy products.  
TT: I doubt it.  
TT: Why did you care if I was going?  
GT: Er.  
GT: Well youre my friend of course!  
TT: So you need to see me?  
GT: I want you  
GT: TO!  
GT: I uh.  
TT: …  
GT: I want to. See you that is.  
TT: Okay.  
GT: Hows the picture doing????  
TT: The what?  
TT: Oh.  
TT: Not so good.  
TT: Guess it wasn’t quite 10/10 enough.  
GT: Bummer!!!!!!!  
GT: Anyway i need to go now im a very busy man you know this ice cream isnt going to eat itself!!!!!  
GT: Farewell!!!!!!

  
golgothasTerror is an idle chum!

  
TT: …  
TT: Bye?

 

 

“Okay,” Dave says, hooking an arm around Dirk’s waist and ushering him through the door, “Maybe I was wrong.”

“Really? Hold on, I think I need to sit down. This is such a shock to me. Dave? Make a wrong move? I personally think we should inform the press about this iconic moment. We need a photo op, dude, this is going down in history.”

“You know as well as I do that no one’s as interested in my ass here as they were in your timeline. Luckily we’re in the same boat.” They get through the doors with little hardship. “That is, in no one wanting our asses.”

“Cute,” Dirk says gruffly, squinting his eyes at the flourescent lighting. “Your ideas are getting brighter.”

“This wasn’t my idea.”

“Clearly,” Karkat says, haughtily, as he glances behind him. “Contrary to popular assumption, it seems that neither of you are using your bulges as navigating cylinders in this, what I can only describe as a colossal fucking piss up. Frankly, I’m fucking sick of hearing about it and would like to be able to get my forty sweeps without hearing human REM on repeat from the next room.”

“Dude, I still can’t believe you have troll REM,” Dave says, gesturing for Dirk to sit on a bar stool.

Karkat crosses his arms, tapping his foot with a satisfying click. Nobody could possibly look more out of place in such a joint, but Dirk, despite his insistence on wearing his designated trailer rave outfit, is awkward enough to come a close second. “I still stand by my evaluation that Every Troll Experiences A Realm Of Hurt Throughout Their Life And Thus It Was Deemed Necessary To Perform Melodious Soliloquies About The Topic Of Pain And Suffering On A Constant Basis In Order To Warn Others That The Primary Perpetrator Of Which Is Love Which-”

“Dude, this is longer than the damn song.”

“-is a far superior ‘jam.’”

“Speaking of pain and suffering,” Dirk interjects, leaning an elbow on the counter. Dave supposes it would look semi-suave if it weren’t for the beads of sweat clearly running streams down the back of his neck. “What am I supposed to do here? I doubt your master plan involves me lying across this bar, sweating quicker than a sea lion at the matinee. That poor fucker just keeps on jumping, but all he’s getting is dubiously cannibalistic animal crackers and the unmistakable feeling of draining self worth.”

“Well, internet dating clearly didn’t work-” Dave starts.

“Because it’s fucking stupid,” Karkat continues.

“And I have no interest in dating,” Dirk adds, drumming his fingers.

“So clearly we just need to drop you in with the big guns,” Dave finishes.

Dirk reaches over the counter to take one of the glasses of water that are lined up along the inside. It’s unlikely this is strictly allowed, but no one says anything outright against it. “How big are these guns exactly?”

“Oh dude, you’ve no idea. These guns are so big they’ll have Betty Boop dumping Popeye for a load of them. They’re the kind of guns you have to get an anchor tattooed on and wear those wear metal bead bracelets that only ten year old girls and super buff dudes can pull off. They’re the kind of guns that are so damn waterproof you can shoot them off underwater. You can straight up sock a shark in the nose with these guns and the shark will be like, yo dude, nice punch, I didn’t even know I had a nose until you punched it clean off into the algae or something. Karkat, do sharks have noses?”

“God, shut up!”

“You have no idea if sharks have noses, do you. Haha, Dirk, get a load of this.”

Dirk remains nonplussed, or some other word with several different meanings. “I take it I’m not here to win over dubiously anatomically correct cartoon girls from the thirties though.”

“Nah, I know your game. This is a gay bar. Looked it up on Can Land Google Maps specially for your convenience. Call the carapace pope because we’ve got a fucking saint on our hands.”

Dirk makes a face at the word gay and looks like he’s going to protest it when Karkat elbows him in the side. “There, look. The guy there looks suitably desperate.”

Across the bar, past the plethora of seemingly happy patrons, there is a man mulling over a single beer. “Is he crying,” Dave asks, squinting over the top of his shades.

“Does it matter?” Karkat says, taking Dirk’s water with a swipe and sipping it himself. Dirk doesn’t notice or, if he does, he doesn’t say anything.

“He’s not my type,” he says finally, turning back to the counter with a sigh.

“Do you even have a type?” Dave asks, leaning across the counter too. From this angle, Dirk is starting to look less awkward and out of place and more immensely uncomfortable. Maybe they should have held out hope that someone would solve Socrates’ riddle. “Last time I checked your type was a very specific brand of weird that only Jake can pull off and, even then, his looks struggle to balance it out. Once poorly thought out tweenstache and he’d be as bad as you.”

“I have a type,” Dirk shoots back, in such a tone that it’s easy to tell that type means standards. However, it doesn’t change anything when those standards are only achievable by one person.

“Well I doubt you’re his type either, pissmunch, but beggars can’t be choosers,” Karkat snaps. He’s frustratedly tapping on his phone and he pointedly tilts it away when Dirk tries to look over his head to see what he’s doing. “Do you fucking mind? You have better ways to waste my fucking time than this so fuck off and exchange seed flap fluid with that poor bastard over there before he spews dismay sap at us, you fucking cheese critter.”

“Do I...have to do that?” Dirk asks slowly, as if trying to translate what a seed flap could possibly be and drawing up only unwanted answers.

“You heard the man, bro, don’t be a cheese critter” Dave says, shoving him off the chair before offering him a solid pat on the back, “But nah, you don’t have to. You definitely have to talk to him though.”

“Great.”

 

carcinoGeneticist began pestering golgothasTerror

CG: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?  
CG: I DON’T HAVE ALL DAY YOU KNOW. I HAVE AN INCREDIBLY FUCKING IMPORTANT DATE TOO AND I’M NOT GOING TO MISS IT BECAUSE YOU DECIDED TO BURY YOUR NUGBONE IN THE NEAREST VOID OF SEA GRIT LIKE SOME SORT OF TEMPESTUOUS SPLEENFOWEL.  
CG: MY DATE IS EXTREMELY URGENT. YOU SEE, IT’S AN UNMISSABLE APPOINTMENT WITH A FUCKING HACKSAW, TO PAINFULLY EXTRACT MY OCULAR ORBS FROM THEIR NUGGETCAVES NOT ONLY TO CAUSE ME INTENSE ANGUISH SO I CAN REMOVE ANY RESEMBLANCE OF EMPATHY LEFT FROM MY DERANGED THINKPAN IN ORDER TO FUNCTION AS A SEMI-COMPETENT VESSEL WITHOUT RESORTING TO ASSISTING IN THE PERPETUAL BONE BATTERING OF YOUR THROB STALKER OUT OF SOME SENSE OF MISPLACED VIGILANTISM, BUT ALSO TO SAVE MYSELF FROM THE CONSISTENTLY PRESENT VISAGE OF THIS BONE BATTERING THAT YOU ARE AT LEAST PARTIALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR.  
CG: YOU FUCKER.  
GT: Greetings karkat!  
CG: OH HELLO, JAKE.  
CG: HOW ARE YOU?  
CG: ME? I’M DOING REALLY FUCKING SWELL.  
CG: NOW IF WE’RE DONE FUCKING AROUND LIKE RECENTLY EJECTED ECTO-SLIME, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU???  
GT: Er. In the kitchen?  
GT: If you want me to keep you fellows a bowl of cereal all you had to do was say so buddy! Theres plenty to go around!  
GT: Except...the u shapes? I dont know where all those went.  
CG: HOW FUCKING NIFTY.  
CG: ARE YOU PLANNING ON, OH, I DON’T KNOW, MAYBE NOT BEING IN THE FUCKING KITCHEN ANY TIME SOON?  
CG: AND MAYBE BEING, OH JUST THROWING THIS OUT THERE, HERE???  
GT: Oh nuts it completely slipped my mind! I was supposed to meet you two wasnt i?  
GT: You know me i have a head like a sieve! Im ever so sorry!  
CG: I COULDN’T GIVE YOU TWO SHITNUBS TO GYRATE AGAINST. GET YOUR SPINAL CREVICE HERE BEFOR  
GT: Er.  
GT: Was there more to that or?  
CG: hey  
CG: nm the shows over  
CG: were coming home  
GT: Shucks.

turntechGodhead  began pestering  timaeusTestified

TG: look dude  
TG: im not going to lie to you  
TG: you were probably right to lie about where you come from  
TG: i mean  
TG: i would have picked a better lie than  
TG: i was raised by wild australian mongooses from infancy where i was taken in by an atlantian goat farmer with a penchant for danish folk stories  
TG: mongeese?  
TG: whatever  
TG: i mean i think he was buying it up until the part where australia doesnt exist  
TG: idk dude maybe he would have appreciated the honest fucking truth that were all kinds of batshit  
TG: whatever  
TG: im sorry  
TG: there i said it  
TG: can you turn off rem now  
TT: No.  
TG: fuck you man  
TG: i wish the mongeese had eaten you at birth  
TT: You and me both, dude.

 

“So,” Rose says, sticking her foot in the doorway to stop Dave from shutting it in her face, “I hear you’re thinking of changing careers.”

“I don’t have a career,” he says, leaning on the doorframe as nonchalantly as he can to try to mask the fact that he just tried to slam a door on her. “I’m just living my life, you know that. Money talks but it’s also a bitch and I don’t like what it’s saying. It calls me ugly behind my back. I heard it insulted my hair last week. I don’t want shit to do with money.”

“I’d already established that you weren’t being paid for this,” she says, pushing her way in the door. Dave is powerless to stop her but, God, he wants to. “Even I don’t get paid for this and, let us both do ourselves the favour of remaining completely honest here, I’m far more qualified.”

“True,” he says, shutting the door behind her, “What are we talking about here?”

“Meddling.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Can I ask why you’re pertaining yourself with extramural provinces?” she asks, sitting down and bringing her legs up to cross them on the chair. It’s very casual. Dave is glad to be able to tell his brain isn’t being picked quite as harshly this time. “It’s hardly your forte. If anything, I’d be inclined to consider it your anti-forte. You can be rather proficient at things that don’t involve assisting other people.”

“That’s a damn lie and you know it. I’m proficient at nothing but words with the word ass hidden in them.” She smiles easily but her eyebrows tell a different story. He sighs and continues. “Yeah, okay. I’m up to my elbows in shit here, Rose, and I’m fully prepared to dig with my bare hands which are also covered in, you guessed it, shit.”

“Are they really bare if they’re covered in shit?”

“Details, Rose, details.”

“Regardless, you haven’t answered my question.” Dave watches warily as she tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The cold metal of her ring catches the light just over the small dent in the material. That was left by Jake (page boy) tripping on the carpeted aisle and slamming the one thing he was entrusted with against the marble of the floor. Both him and Dave had struggled immensely to mask completely different emotions for the rest of the ceremony but it was nothing a customary Hollywood finale couldn’t shake out of the both of them.

Dave can only hope for a similar finale now, even if it’s to save his own skin. “You know damn well why.”

A withering look. “As wonderful as being in your delightful presence is, I have better things to do than ask questions I already know the answer to.”

“The bet, Rose. I know you thought you had it in the bag. You already had the Prada purse bought on Canazon to store your devilish after-plot in. But you know what they say about buying purses before a bet is finished, Rose. It’s the same thing they say about chickens. You know damn well not to count your purses before they cross the road.”

Rose pauses, her hand dropping into her lap again. She uncrosses her legs and leans forward a little, brows furrowed. “Dave.”

“Yes?”

“What the fuck.”

Dave doesn’t answer, instead stiffening and pushing himself off the door frame to stand up straighter. Like hell she’s going to play dumb with him on this.

Luckily, she continues. “I’m not talking about how badly you garbled that metaphor. Though, let’s face it, that was even more extraneous than is customary for you. What bet are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Rose, I know it too well.”

“Your perennial compulsion to constantly state your own ignorance never ceases to astound me. Sadly, however, I must join you. What are you talking about?”

“The bet, Rose!” Dave blurts, unthinkingly, as he tosses his arms in the air, “Dirk needs to sort his shit out before New Year or God knows what you’re going to do to me. You’ve had a decade to prepare for this and I don’t think my mind can even begin to compute what horror you probably have in store for me at this stage. Have you prepared some sick dungeon under our very feet where you plan to use me as your voodoo doll pin cushion for the foreseeable future? Or do you plan to use me as your unwitting victim for your black magic schemes? I’m perfectly fine living my life in ignorance of what heinous bullshit you can draw out from your twisted mind, like some demonic possession of a Hot Topic shirt. Yeah, sure, I’ll never be normal again but not in the quirky capitalism way that you can profit off. No, you’re going to drag me straight into Lalondian purgatory and nothing is less niche marketable than your particular brand of trauma. So, yeah, maybe I’m meddling but really it’s for the greater good of this economy. Do you know how much the stock market values idiosyncratic produce? Do you know how the destruction of the concept of alternative can do to a budding universe. The Mayor worked hard on this, Rose, and-”

She holds up a hand. “I recall,” she states simply, cutting him off.

“Thank God, because I was about to delve into politics and you know me with insects.”

“At least I recall now.” She looks up. There’s a slight glint in her eye and Dave immediately feels his body turn cold.

“Now?” he asks, but he already has a sinking feeling that he knows what this means.

“Yes.” She stands, brushing off her trousers with an idle hand before looking at him with a look that could only be described as wicked and that’s if you were able escape being certainly turned to stone in order to describe it. Dave can already feel his bones locking in place. “Thank you for reminding me. Our wager had entirely slipped my mind. I didn’t have much reason to dwell on it, you see. I have far more productive means of occupying myself. Not that you haven’t been extremely productive in self decimation as of late. In fact, it would be a shame to let your immense effort go to waste and let this wager lie in the ground. I suppose I must make sacrifices myself and rise to your challenge.”

Nudging past Dave to get to the door, she stops, turning to look over her shoulder. Dave regards that smile on her face with an impending sense of dread. The weight of his umpteenth fuck-up of the month weighs heavy on his head as her smile broadens across her face.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I apparently have a dungeon to construct.”

 

 

 

Jake is busy trying to avoid one Dirk, ghostly and taking up the entire counter as Jake tries to pour cereal into a bowl on the very corner, when the other Dirk, physical but far worse for wear, wanders in.

There’s the awkward stand off in the common room, which is an odd thing between two friends who arguably have no reason to be on bad terms but is probably the usual for ex-boyfriends, which Jake supposes they kind of are in some manner of speaking. He halts in his pouring, turning to look at Dirk like a deer in the headlights. Dirk blinks blankly and Jake watches his adam’s apple bob as they both search for words to make this less painful.

“Awkward,” Brain Ghost Dirk says, breaking the silence for Jake at least. Dirk glances in his direction, confused but only subconsciously aware of his presence. Jake’s never dared to ask just how much Dirk knows about his peculiar counterpart. He doesn’t want to start the conversation explaining how a ghost lives in his head. Dirk thinks he’s weird enough as it is.

“So,” Jake says, “Sorry for my blunder the other day. It was a, um.”

“Freudian slip,” Brain Ghost Dirk supplies helpfully.

“A freudian slip! Yes that is precisely what it was.”

Dirk raises an eyebrow but Jake, as per usual, struggles to read his expression. “Something you were thinking but weren’t intending to say, then.”

Jake looks accusingly at Brain Ghost Dirk, who smirks as he slides off the counter and back into obscurity. “Erm. I heard you went out after all! I must have messaged you prematurely,” Jake says, changing the subject.

Dirk’s face immediately sours further. “You heard.”

“Oh well, I just looked for updates that’s all,” he says, floundering slightly, “It certainly wasn’t my intention to pry into your affairs.”

“Right.” The grit in his teeth is obvious and Jake slowly retrieves his bowl of cereal to distract himself from whatever way Dirk’s frustration is going to manifest itself. “You didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” Jake confirms, stirring the soggy mess that’s left in the bowl, “I just like to keep posted even if I’m not up to dick.”

Dirk’s face pulls this way and that and Jake wordlessly watches him, his expressions changing too quickly to be coherent for him. Eventually, it settles back into impassive. “Right. Excuse me,” he states, turning swiftly on his heel and walking into the door. And then walking out the door without delay.

Jake decides to leave the spot of blood on the paintwork for someone else to fix.

 

timaeusTestified began pestering turntechGodhead

  
TT: It’s over.  
TG: what  
TT: I’m done.

  
timaeusTestified ceased pestering turntechGodhead

  
TG: fuck


	6. the one with humphrey clownhouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which dirk gets a date and everyone is preoccupied with metaphorical elephants

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i should warn you that dirk kisses someone in this chapter. just so you know.
> 
> also i can't write john or jade but especially john but i tried my best
> 
> also it's been a year since i started writing this now! time flies when you're procrastinating. at least i have somewhat of an update schedule now, right?

gardenGnostic began pestering ectoBiologist 

 

GG: john!!!

GG: i havent seen you in ages where are you??

GG: i promise im not going to yell about the chicken nuggets again :/

EB: good! because i don’t even regret it!

GG: >:O

GG: you should regret it! you promised me you wouldnt eat meat!

EB: that was like twelve years ago! why don’t you just stop?

GG: you know i have to eat meat now john!

EB: yeah yeah, you have a weird dog digestive system, bluh bluh. i bet you eat grass too. 

GG: i do not eat grass!!!!

EB: haha you’re such a liar, i’ve seen the patches in the lawn. 

GG: those were from the explosions and you know it!!!

EB: a likely story…………………………..

GG: john!!!!

EB: A LIKELY STORY……………………………………………………

GG: ugh you’re just being annoying now :p

GG: anyway where have you been??

EB: oh you know…………….around.

GG: wow that’s such a simultaneously lame and unhelpful answer! thanks john!

EB: you’re welcome, jade!

GG: are you at least gonna come down to dinner tonight?

EB: nope! i have plans.

GG: plans?

EB: i’m doing things. 

GG: things?

EB: i’m a busy guy, jade!

GG: do you have a date???

EB: maybe……………..

GG: wow thats great john!!!

GG: did you cut off your dumb mullet or something?

EB: fuck you, jade. 

GG: hehe :)

  
  


EB: i did tell you that this was really sad, right?

TT: Several times. 

EB: just making sure because this is really REALLY sad. :p

TT: You’re still in though, right. 

EB: oh yeah. definitely! 

EB: i’m always down for a steak dinner.

TT: Who the fuck said I was buying you dinner?

EB: wow, no wonder you can’t get a boyfriend. yikes. 

TT: Whatever. I’m most likely going to regret asking this but you do know what you’re doing, right?

EB: oh, please. just leave this to me. 

TT: Yeah, I’m already regretting this. 

  
  


“You have a what?” Dave asks, not even bothering to hide the incredulity in his voice. 

Dirk continues to wash his face in the kitchen sink. It’s not the most hygienic of solutions but running up and down the stairs is tiring and making him sweat even more. He has to admit, this is not his most elaborate plan, nor is it one he’s most confident in. If anything, it’s a lucky guess with a hopefully affirmative outcome. Whatever confidence he does have in it is solely due to it being a product of his own mind as opposed to blindly trusting whatever hairbrained scheme Dave thinks up of next.

“A date,” he repeats, fixing his fringe in his reflection in one of the cupboard door knobs. 

Dave crosses his arms, leaning against the counter with his lips pulled in an obvious look of dissatisfaction. “What happened to being done?”

“I’m done with you fucking around,” he replies, smoothing his bangs before straightening up and looking Dave dead in the eye. Dave steps back a little. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to let this whole situation you shoved me into trample me like a particularly feisty group of baby elephants. Not saying I’m going to acknowledge the elephant in the room, no matter how juvenile it is, but I’m sure as hell not going to get my ass kicked by a toddler of any species. Especially not elephants. They’re jackasses.”

“Yeah, I know. We watched that documentary together, remember?”

Dirk gives a huff in confirmation before going right back to wiping his face in a damp tea towel. Dave wrinkles up his nose. 

“Look,” he says eventually, “I’m starting to think that maybe the best idea is to just acknowledge the damn elephant already. Just give that fucker its participation trophy and send it on its merry way before anyone else gets trampled.”

“Because you’ve thought up the most wonderful ideas up until now.”

“Hey, look. I’ll admit that maybe this has been my fault. But you can only blame me for like two months, max. You need to talk to Jake about this, like, nine years ago. Do you not think it’s a little ridiculous that we’re still playing the jealousy game like you’re in fucking middle school. Snapping the other boys’ dubiously coloured wrist bands is not going to get you a varsity jacket, bro. You’re hard to get as it is without playing it up.”

“Do I have to remind you that this was your idea first,” Dirk says cooly, tapping his fingers on the counter. He checks his watch. Time is coming short now.

“We’ve already established that I’m shit at ideas. Except for the talk to Jake one. I’ve decided to place my bets on that one.”

“You shouldn’t bet.”

Dave groans. “Oh God, you have no fucking idea.”

Before Dirk can even determine if he wants an elaboration, Jake wanders in, a little bleary eyed as he rubs his face and yawns subtly into his sleeve. He pauses suddenly when he sees the two standing there, eyes darting from one to the other. 

“Strider? Striders. Plural,” he fumbles, lips pulling this way and that before settling into a definite lip bite. He presses past Dirk to the sink, dipping his head under the faucet to seamlessly gulp down a stream of water. They have so many cups, though Dave won’t complain when it’s his turn to load the dishwasher. 

“English,” Dave replies, with a nod. He looks over Jake’s back at Dirk just in time to catch Dirk glancing away, red-handed and faced. It’s painfully obvious. “You look like you just rolled out of bed.”

“Oh no, of course not! I’ve been awake for some time though I must admit I hardly hastened to actually tidy myself up and get started on the daily duties a fellow has. In fact I didn’t start on them much at all.” He shuffles back, pulling the sleeves of his cardigan over his hands as if to stop them moving involuntarily at his sides. 

“Lazy day, figures,” Dave says, “We all got them. Sometimes you just gotta wait a while before you kick them to the kerb and demand they contribute financially to the year. Every day’s gotta do its bit and you already have Sundays mooching off you like a stoned roommate, using rent money for-”

Jake is quite obviously not paying attention and doesn’t even notice when Dave cuts himself off mid-sentence. “Are you going somewhere?” he asks, gaze subtly darting to Dirk. 

“Good guess,” Dirk says after a beat. The internal floundering is obvious and viscerally painful for Dave to watch. 

“It’s not a guess! You only ever wear long sleeves when you’re doing something special,” Jake says with a small smile. He steps forward and then goes up on his toes to brush a stray piece of hair over to the right side of Dirk’s parting, tongue stuck out in concentration to do it. Dirk’s sharp inhale is a little wheezy and he looks at Jake, brows confused and dancing. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, Strider. I can be observant when I choose to be.”

“I guess so,” he says as Jake returns to his normal height. 

“What’s on the agenda then? Are you and Dave headed for another night out?” Dave feels Jake scrutinising his tracksuit bottoms and immediately feels even more frustrated with Dirk. 

“I have a date.”

Jake pauses. He wasn’t doing much to begin with but his subtle hand movements, the flap of his fingers up and down, stops dead for a split second. If he was going to blink, he doesn’t do so, staring blankly at Dirk as if his brain needs a few seconds to buffer, which it likely does. Once the words are suitably processed, Jake’s hands start to dance, though not at all jovially, by his sides once more as he shifts from foot to foot. Dave can’t say he’s a master at reading Harley-English emotions (sometimes subtlety is easier to distinguish than conflicting, mass emotion) but he’s clearly fazed. 

“A date! Well that just...er. It just butters my biscuit! Right up my alley, totally jolly!” He fumbles a little more, eyes darting to the door before he ultimately comes to the conclusion that running away would make this even more silly and embarrassing. He tugs out a kitchen chair and sits up on it, legs crossed a little too tightly to look as relaxed as criss cross applesauce should. “I’m happy for you. I guess the lucky fellow liked your...pictures? Your pictures then, I’m sure, they were bang up to elephant if you ask me! Which you er...I can’t remember if you did or not but nonetheless my opinion was given full steam ahead!”

“What’s with everyone talking about elephants today,” Dave groans. This is humiliating. He was never this embarrassing, he refuses to accept it. And if he was, he had the excuse of age on his side. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dirk answers, looking away. Jake droops enough for him to notice and stiffen, making a loose, dismissive hand gesture. “Not you. Elephants.”

“Elephants?” 

“Yeah.” Dirk is silent for a moment and everyone else follows suit. Then he breaks it. “I think they eat their young.”

“They what now?” Jake says, eyebrows shooting up to his hairline.

“Their kids. I think they eat them. Not all the time, of course, or they’d bring about their well-deserved extinction a lot quicker. Besides, they gotta leave some of them around for the heartwarming movies about animal abuse. It’s the mass media’s last ditch effort to overthrow the clown empire by turning their only non-fanatic consumers against them. Kids have surprising amounts of empathy for large, cartoon animals. And a surprising amount of political power.”

Jake blinks. “Oh..,” he says, “That’s...lovely, Strider.”

There’s silence again, except for the sound of Dirk’s shallow, stunted breathing. Dave watches a beat of sweat fall down Jake’s furrowed brow. It’s honestly rather ridiculous. Dave had the hurdles of 21st century societal pressure, ingrained in him from meteor-esque birth, to overcome in order to accept his feelings and move on with them in the appropriate way. Perhaps there is a less clinical term for a story likened to Nicholas Sparks, if he wasn’t a coward and dead, but Dave would take clinical cold logic over watching another blundering failure at communication again. It’s grating, like watching somebody’s shitty romantic-comedies for the seventh time and knowing already that it’s all an enormous miscommunication that would be easily resolved if the characters just had the ability to talk to one another but having to sit and watch them gracelessly flounder, helpless to do anything but yell obscenities at the television screen. Except this is a ten year long epic and it’s long since lost the comedy value. And Dave has had enough. 

He slams his hand down on the table, hard enough that Jake jumps a little in his seat, hands restlessly twitching in his lap. “For fuck’s sake, Dirk, would you just-”

The door slams open, cutting him off mid sentence. All three heads turn to witness the smoke slowly creep in through the obscured passage. The dust takes a number of moments to settle, in which Jake somehow continues to remain shocked and agape. Dave watches out of the corner of his eye as Dirk slowly covers his face with a hand. 

“Hi,” says John, wearing a fake mustache, “I’m here to pick up Dirk.”

“Oh,” Jake says after a moment. 

“Shit,” says Dirk, a second after. 

Donned in full on britches, suspenders and a ruffled tux shirt, John looks like he might have just stepped out of a circus if the smile on his face didn’t place him closer to the realm of Stephen King’s “It”. The only thing that could make him look more unnecessarily ludicrous is if he were wearing clogs instead of the slightly less ridiculous brogues, an off-shade of brown that matches nothing else. “Wow, tough crowd,” John says, straightening and leaning against the door, “I know smoke pellets are pretty first grade but I thought I at least deserved a conciliatory clap there. Even a golf clap would do, throw a guy a bone.” A few words in, it’s evident that he’s also putting on an accent that is as far away from “It” as it is close to Austin Powers. 

Dave golf claps slowly, almost convinced that somebody knocked him out and this is the most peculiar lucid dream.

Jake stares at John. 

Dirk’s breathing becomes a little more shallow. His hand hasn’t left his face yet but he’s peeking through his fingers like this is the trainwreck caused by his choice to a particular moral problem and he’s self-flagellating enough to watch it come to fruition.

John’s mustache slips a little. 

“It’s,” Jake starts, hands clenching noticeably before he manages to still them, smoothing out his loose shorts. “My pleasure. Though I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

Dave stares, mouth slightly open. Dirk’s hand drops from his face. John fixes his mustache. 

“Nope! Humphrey Clownhouse at your service!” He clicks his tongue and punctuates it with a wink. It’s one of those winks that people who can’t actually wink do; a mixture between a squint and a cringe. 

“What the ever-loving fuck,” Dave says and Dirk elbows him to be quiet.

“English. Jake English,” Jake says, only pausing to give Dave a questioning look for a second.

“Never heard of you,” John chimes, striding forward a little towards Dirk. It takes everything in Dirk’s power not to noticeably step backwards. 

“You-” Jake pauses and blinks rapidly for a few seconds before shaking his head and continuing, “No, I don’t suppose you would have.”

“Jake is,” Dirk starts before stopping dead in his tracks. He looks at Jake. Jake looks at him. “Jake is my...friend. Room mate of sorts. My room friend.”

“His room friend,” Jake says, almost noticeably sourly to Dave’s surprise.

“Glad to hear it,” John says, hooking his arm into Dirk’s elbow. To give him his due, Dirk only slightly looks ready to strangle him. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ve got dinner reservations. Your good room friend Dirk here promised he’d buy me a steak. What else could you ask for in a date. You should date him next.”

With an exaggerated wink that’s so painfully obvious that Dirk actually groans, loudly, covering his face again before stalking out, John exits the room before Jake can even finish saying, “I already have.”

Both Dave and him sit in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. For a while, Dave has been regretting his decision to interfere in this issue on the basis of it being a hindrance and a possible threat for himself, and plain embarrassing to watch. Now, however, as he watches Jake deflate little by little, his bottom lip caught under his protruding front teeth as he worries whatever emotions are threatening to spill over into biting down on it, he’s feeling regret on a whole different level. It’s the kind of regret that settles heavy and sickening on your stomach, thick like cough syrup guilt. 

“So, you didn’t know that guy at all,” Dave asks, swallowing down the feeling. Jake shakes his head. “Not even a little bit? Never thought, hey, that guy looks mighty fucking familiar. Or even a little familiar? Like minutely familiar, like tasting the McDonald’s secret sauce in your freezer packed nuggets. ”

Jake is silent for a moment longer. “No,” he says finally.

“You didn’t even think he looked a little like...you?”

Al he can do is watch in disbelief as Jake actually chokes out a small scoff of a laugh. “Don’t be daft, Dave, he looked *nothing* like me! It’s like,” he makes a few hand gestures, face obviously souring, “It’s like I was never even his *type*. It’s quite frankly a little embarrassing.”

Dave stares, his jaw ever so slightly dropped. There’s no way this is a lucid dream. It’s too far-fetched. Jake bites his lip again, watching Dave’s expression with worried eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a debbie-downer of sorts,” he says after a moment, sighing heavily, “It’s just...unexpected. Though I suppose that’s what I get for thinking I could predict the guy at this point.”

He turns, pressing past Jade in the doorway. She looks after him, brows furrowed with worry, but she ultimately doesn’t follow him. Dave trusts her decision. 

“I thought I saw John come by here,” she says, skipping forward to push Dave’s mouth closed. 

“No,” Dave groans, sliding down the counter on to the floor, “That was someone else.”

  
  
  
  
  


“Hope powers never cease to amaze me. It’s really a weird fuckin’ aspect.”

John munches through a piece of steak blankly, swallowing thickly before responding. “Are you just gonna talk about Jake the whole time. Is this how this is gonna go?”

Dirk’s gaze shoots back to John from where it had been lingering passively on a soup spoon, dripping of the edge of a table several feet away. He shifts, straightens, and leans across his own soup bowl to face John, elbows uncomfortably close to the centre of the table. “You’re aware this isn’t a real date, right?”

“You sure know how to make a guy feel wanted. I’m completely shocked no one else took you up on this offer. You’re such a catch.”

“I bought you dinner.”

“What a gentleman! I’ve completely forgotten how weird you are now!” He sticks out his tongue before taking another bite of steak. Dirk observes him, as passive as he’d observed the spoon. It’s hard to pay attention when he’s so busy recounting everything that has happened thus far. Jake had took it well, certainly, but he was hardly going to take it any other way. He likes to take things lying down, taking the route with least conflict. Even if he was upset or angry he’d never actually do anything about it, especially not in public. Jake is perfectly willing and capable of embarrassing himself in a multitude of ways but he’d never do it by intentionally starting a scene. Dirk has to look deeper than that. He looked uncomfortable, didn’t he? Though surely most people would be if suddenly presented with a stranger in their kitchen. It’s not like Jake has the best track record for coping with new faces. 

“Why are you staring at me,” John asks, chewing with his mouth open, “Is there something on my face?”

Dirk sits back, face turning a little pink as he crosses his arms defensively. Drat, he zoned out again. “No.”

“Oh, I get it. It’s just because I’m so attractive, right? Because I am. So attractive.”

After a second of blank staring, Dirk rolls his eyes. “Yeah, hit the nail on the head there,” he says, “I’m surprised you even had a night free for me. I’m honoured, really, that you took a night away from watching shitty eighties movies to help me out.”

“What’s your deal with the eighties, dude. The oldies are the goodies, and the goodies are The Goonies.”

He offers a noncommittal noise in response, stirring what’s left of his soup idly with his spoon. He supposes John isn’t wrong. He’s somewhat attractive in the unconventional ways Jake is attractive. The two have a striking familial resemblance after all and while Dirk would hardly say he particularly found bucked teeth and a rounded jawline Jake’s most attractive qualities, they are Jake’s qualities and when it comes down to it all of his qualities are attractive. 

Logically, Dirk knows his attraction to Jake is a product of circumstance. There was only one boy he could talk to who wasn’t a questionable aged internet troll or a product of his own psyche and it was natural that he would develop a co-dependency of sorts. With no other reliable means by which to deposit his emotions and pre-inclinations into another vessel, Jake bore the brunt of a dozen middle school crushes and a lifetime's worth of celebrity infatuation. So would anyone else, had they been in Jake’s position. 

There is no manner of naivety Dirk could possess that would allow him to deny that had anyone else been in Jake’s position, he would have fell just as hard and just as intensely and the thought it somewhat disturbing. How little impact a person can actually make and how intensely everyone was and remains a victim of a fickle sort of fate. It’s the sort of thing that Dirk could never claim to have control over and the one thing that would seem vital that he had some manner of agency in. But he never did. 

However, he’s not stuck in a box room in an ocean tower with only a bad internet connection and an odd, charismatic boy in the past for that sort of company any more. He could have walked away ten years ago, learned by trial and error with any number of men that Can Land has thriving in it. There’s no such thing as soulmates, really. If there was, it wouldn’t be so much work. But Dirk was never willing to work at anything other than Jake. And he supposes that has nothing to do with fate any more. 

“Hey, Dirk.”

Dirk looks up. John has two straws stuck under his upper lip and his pulling his lips wide into a funny sort of snarl. One of the straws is a little lopsided. Dirk pauses before his lips pull into an awkward half smile, thinly covering up a noise. 

“I don’t know about attractiveness, but you make a damn good elephant.”

“Fuck you, I’m supposed to be a walrus, obviously!”

“The fuck is a walrus?”

John frowns and the straws drop onto his lap. This shouldn’t be in anyway amusing but for some reason Dirk fails to cover up a wheeze this time. “A walrus is like, I don’t know, a seal but it looks like an old man? You know what a seal is, right? The fat water dogs with no legs. They just go along on their stomachs like these big, fat water worms and-- hey, are you laughing?”

“No,” Dirk says, clamping his mouth shut. 

“Dude, you definitely made a noise just there.”

“No I didn’t,” Dirk insists, lips tight. 

The peculiar thing about being raised in complete isolation is the inability to acquire behaviours that are typically learned in infancy. While smiling is a result of evident stimuli, smiling properly and in an aesthetically appealing manner is not. Laughter comes much the same. Without being immersed in jovial tomfoolery as a baby, it’s incredibly difficult for someone to learn how the noise sounds when it’s not being forced from your throat like a particularly rough bout of hiccups. It’s ten times harder when you have the general demeanour of an unenthused and rather soggy raisin. 

He’s slipped and smiled in that uncomfortable, forced, and almost unnervingly crooked manner in front of a few people before but only Jake and Roxy have succeeded in hearing him laugh. Or make a wheezing croaking sound before clamping his mouth shut. Dirk’s planning on keeping it that way for as long as possible. 

“Whatever,” John says after a minute, hopping up, “Are you ready to go?”

“Are you not going to milk me for dessert too?”

“Dude, no offence, but never ask me about milking you ever again.”

The image of Arquius’ gaunt, sweaty face crosses both their minds. “Point taken,” Dirk says, hastily, standing up and exiting the establishment as quickly as possible, as if speed walking can erase the thought from his mind. John trots behind him, easily able to keep up. He’s considerably taller than Jake and even taller than Dirk, though he’s reluctant to admit it. Only Jade has a height advantage on him and nobody's quite sure where their height gene came from. 

They walk in respective silence for the rest of the short walk back to the complex. It’s a cold night, but Dirk barely notices. He’s far too busy mulling over whether or not this was a success. Has he been gone long enough for this to be a believable success? Will Jake even notice what time he arrives home at? It’s possible he won’t. Maybe he should message him to let him know that he got home safe. But that would look far too obvious; it would be clear even to Jake that it was a petty attempt to make him jealous. Dirk needs to look as not petty as possible for this to work in his favour. Jake so easily thought that he was pathetically unable to even secure a date with anyone else. If he’s to win Jake back, he has to make sure it’s because Jake wants him back, not just because Jake thinks Dirk is incapable of dating anyone else. Not that it’s untrue, but it’s an inconvenient truth and not one he wants Jake knowing, for his own pride and for Jake’s autonomy. 

“You’re excellent company, you know,” John says as they approach the front gate, “You’re the conversationalist. It’s you. Have you considered going into public relations?”

“God, is this just your personality or something,” Dirk groans, pausing to turn around, “Are you always this frustratingly antagonistic?”

“No, you just make it really easy.” John grins easily for a second before his gaze darts up. Dirk doesn’t get a chance to turn around before John is stepping forward into his space. He looks up at him, brows furrowed. “We’re being watched.”

“What,” Dirk says, attempting to look over his shoulder. John clamps his hands down on his shoulders, stopping him. 

“I think I have to kiss you.”

He stiffens. “Excuse me?” 

“Hey, don’t look at me. This was your plan, remember.”

Dirk’s face pulls. John has a point. “Fine. Lay one on me.”

“Yeah,” John says, his lips pulling a little bit, “we’re making this happen.”

After a few seconds of awkward silence and stillness, John leans in a little. When it becomes evident that he’s not going to move any further, Dirk huffs and closes the distance, smushing their lips together hastily for a split second. He feels nothing until he looks over his shoulder and sees a shadowy figure step away from the window in the observatory and then he just feels his stomach churn in discomfort. 

John makes a noise and Dirk’s gaze snaps back to him once more. “That was anti-climatic,” he admits after a moment.

“Was it supposed to be anything else?” Dirk asks, raising a eyebrow. 

“Well, it’s always this huge friggin’ deal on television, right? Like you go on a date and then you kiss your date and bam, it’s supposed to be this huge thing. I never got it and I still don’t.”

“This wasn’t a real date, remember?”

“Yeah,” John says, crossing his arms, “It wasn’t.”

Dirk is terrible at advice. He’s realised this from many years of attempting to give poor advice under some misconstrued notion that he and his ideas are infallible and he’s starting to think that not only is he unable to give advice to other people but maybe he’s not so good at figuring out what to do himself either. Although, he’s known that too for quite some time. But, he speaks anyway. “It’ll be different when you like someone, you know. I know we’re both exceptionally fucking attractive dudes here, but I don’t think I’m your type.”

“So attractive,” John repeats, rolling his eyes, “But yeah, no. I don’t think I have a type, anyway. Or maybe I’m just ridiculously picky. Who knows.”

“Yeah, sorry Matthew McConaughey died in your game-induced nuclear fallout. I’m sure you would have made a great couple.”

John gasps, brows furrowing. “You are not supposed to know about that! How do you know about that?”

“It was obvious.”

“It was Dave. I’m going to kill Dave.”

When Dirk looks up to the window again, the shadow is gone but the feeling in his stomach remains for the rest of the night. 

  
  
  


turntechGodhead began pestering golgothasTerror

TG: hey

TG: dirk and “humphrey” are home

GT: Why are you putting his name in quotation marks?

GT: And i already noticed.

TG: okay cool

TG: do you want to talk to him

GT: No.

GT: Not right now.

TG: okay

TG: …

TG: do you want to watch 10 things i hate about you 

TG: i think i have it on dvd here somewhere

GT: God do i ever. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw: jake doesn't recognise john because of a glitch dirk was counting on in his hope powers. jake has no reason to believe dirk would be on a fake date and therefore already has an illusionary version of events made up in his mind. this causes more grief than success though because dirk's plan sucks :p


	7. the one with the bend and snap (but not that way)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which dave tries (and fails) to put the ball in dirk's court and jake's issues crescendo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay, the bar scene was hard to write. i definitely didn't do it to the best of my ability but i tried. also, i'm gonna edit the previous chapters a bit to make it apparent that jake does in face work with skaianet in this because i needed to change that for the sake of this chapter. anyway! next chapter is the climax so stay tuned :))

 

turntechGodhead  began pestering  ectoBiologist

 

EB: hi dave!

EB: were you planning on saying something or were you just going to pester me and leave me hanging like a dick?

TG: yo

EB: it took you ten minutes to come up with that? i expect better than that, strider. in fact, i want one metaphor on my desk by the end of today. 

EB: don’t you dare try to write it anything other than comic sans either. i’m a professional, you know. 

EB: i might accept it in bigger font if it’s a really good metaphor.

TG: can it be about elephants

TG: because dude

TG: i have a lot to say about elephants 

EB: no it can’t be about elephants!

EB: i’m sick and tired of frigging elephants. does your bro even know any other animals?

TG: i think he knows what a rabbit is

TG: ill double check

TG: brb

EB: i’m playing elevator music while you’re gone so you better not take forever. 

TG: im back

TG: he said they were fluffy flightless seagulls with a thirst for death

TG: so yeah he knows what rabbits are

EB: wow.

EB: is dirk there with you?

TG: no

TG: im with jake

TG: those two things are kinda mutually exclusive now since

TG: you know

TG: you macked on my brother

EB: eugh, don’t say it like that. 

EB: i had a part to play and i’m a professional remember?

TG: i remember you saying that like two minutes ago tops

TG: how many professions do you have

TG: are you hoarding professions like some sort of entrepreneurial dragon

TG: is this

TG: oh my god

TG: is this the dragons den

EB: it’s not as cool when you accidentally make jokes like that you know. 

TG: no dude

TG: come on

TG: dragons den

TG: move the fuck over seth rogen weve got a new funnyman in town

TG: catch me starring in your latest adult drama

TG: about some adults who adult bad and like to hit each other

TG: also including gratuitous sex scenes with budding actresses pretending to be chagrined housewives doomed to a life of poor adulting

TG: somehow there is time for all this amid all the taxes and labour day weekends with the in-laws

EB: you’re not nearly funny enough to replace seth rogen!

TG: thats the worst thing youve ever said to me

TG: i think a sentient piece of corn could replace him

TG: think about it

TG: what seth rogen movie couldnt be immensely improved by replacing him with a large ear of corn

TG: fuck it

TG: it doesnt even have to be sentient corn

TG: just drop an average vegetable into any seth rogen movie in his place and improve it instantly

TG: now thats an idea for dragons den

EB: sometimes i think you only message me to hear yourself talk. 

TG: no

TG: well yeah

TG: but i actually did have a purpose this time

EB: wow, dave! i think i’m witnessing a miracle.

TG: okay get this

TG: this is my purpose

TG: what the fuck

EB: huh?

TG: seriously

TG: humphrey clownhouse

TG: god youre so lucky it was jake you were trying to fool

TG: no offence to boy wonder here or anything but being the brightest bulb in the box doesnt always make you the sharpest tool in the shed

EB: what does that even mean??

EB: and please, my disguise was perfect! you only saw through it because you’re my best bro, obviously. 

EB: i bet karkat wouldn’t have seen through it. 

TG: karkat wouldnt have given a shit

TG: he knows no one would keep me

EB: you have a point there. 

 

“Hey, Karkat,” Dave says over the sound of Miss Congeniality, “Say some guy with a tux and a mustache showed up on our doorstep.”

“Shut up! She’s just about to realise the imperial horn trinket is a detonation device!”

“And he was like, dude, I’m stealing your boyfriend. I mean, I know you’d be all like, what the everloving fuck, because you don’t just steal people’s boyfriends. Well, I guess you can in a more middle-school-esque fashion and watch them passive aggressively subtweet you with JoJo lyrics in response to you kissing Danny behind the tool shed at recess. But I’m talking specifically in the heist manner. You don’t physically steal people’s boyfriends like they’re a particularly delicate hunk of sausage and you’re a cartoon dog in a wiley newspaper comic from the 1950s.”

“We’re going to have to rewind this,” Jake states, peering across the couch at Dave. It’s the first time he’s lifted his head since Maid in Manhattan.

“But after he explained that he was going to wine and dine me so hard I’d be shooting grapes out of my ass, what would you do?”

Karkat doesn’t look away from the television. “He’d bring you back just as quick,” he says, “I wouldn’t be able to get rid of you that fucking easy.”

“I fucking knew it.”

Dave twists around on the sofa, flipping his legs over the arm of it before dropping his head down on Jake’s knees. They’re boney and uncomfortable, but he’s not a quitter. Jake makes a nonplussed noise in response, shifting a little so Dave’s face is smushed into his calf instead. The hair tickles his nose.

It’s already a week into April and Dave can’t even find it in himself to be worried about what Rose has in store for him any more. Consider it a miracle of the ages, on whatever street and whatever holiday you choose, but Dave actually feels remorse. It’s not just regret for getting himself into this situation any more and frustration at the futility of it all. It’s fully fledged guilt that gets steadily worse and more sickening in the pit of his stomach every time another All American classic draws to a close and Jake half-heartedly reaches for the box of tissues.

For the most part, Dave thinks Dirk hasn’t misunderstood how much Jake cares about him as opposed to how little self-confidence Jake has to express that in the face of perceived competition. Of course, Dave was the one who misunderstood it initially too but if Jake bawling his way through the first twenty minutes of Legally Blonde is anything to go by, jealousy tactics are going to do nothing other than shatter what little self-assurance he’s built up with Rose’s pseudo-therapy lessons. For a hope player, his self-belief is pretty pitiful.

Which means they’re out of options. Well, except for the obvious option of Dirk just coming clean and having an honest conversation but what’s the likelihood of that happening? Frank conversation with him is possible, but rarely when it comes to matters of the heart, ironically enough. It would practically be impossible to convince him to do this the normal way at this point when he’s so far entrenched into this hair-brained, counterproductive scheme.

Unless.

“When’s the last time you went out,” Dave asks casually, tilting his head backwards at Jake. Jake, in turn, pauses his rewind of Miss Congeniality.

“I went to the greenhouse on Monday,” he answers after a beat. It’s already Thursday.

“When’s the last time you were out of the block?”

“Er.” Jake fumbles a little. “It’s hard to recall. I think I went to the shops. We were out of buttermilk so somebody must still be using it and I thought it would be a friendly gesture to top us up. Though I’m not sure what buttermilk is precisely. Is it milked butter?”

“Is that the yellow carton,” Karkat asks, drawn away from the television only because it’s paused.

“Precisely!”

“I threw that congealed syrup out over a month ago. It was fucking disgusting.”

Dave hums. “So it’s been, like, six weeks since you actually went outside.”

Jake opens his mouth to protest before realising that does sound about right and sheepishly nodding instead. “It’s not like I’ve had reason to. A man’s got all he can ask for here!”

“If all a man asks for is some shitty romance flicks and sour dairy products.”

After a few seconds of restless wiggling, Jake sits up further. Dave slides off his legs and lands, face down, in the sofa cushions. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were trying to kick me out!”

“No, dude. You’ve got it wrong.” Dave props himself up again, sliding backwards to allow a more comfortable conversing position. “You see, if we were kicking you out, we wouldn't be offering to bring you for a night on the town. Just us guys, kicking back in a joint that doesn't serve sour milk.”

“We?” says Karkat, narrowing his eyes. Dave ignores him.

“I don't know,” says Jake.

“No dude, seriously. You go into this bar and you lean on the counter like you're a particularly suave cowboy headed in for his pre cheesy speech lukewarm beer, and you're like, hey man, hit me with your finest buttermilk scotch. And the guy is like what do you think this is, Hogwarts? We don't sell that shit. And you're pretty pissed because clearly they didn't sell buttermilk scotch in a prissy wizard boarding school like it's the back alley school I anti-frequented back in Texas and if he's gonna make bad references to your drinking choices he might as well get it right. But you settle for a nice ice cold beer without animal liquid in it and you finally get the epiphany that staying inside all day every day? Fucking sucks. It just takes one sip, my man, and you'll be seeing how dumb Sleepless in Seattle is.”

“Sleepless in Seattle is not dumb,” Jake protests. Karkat nods sagely.

“All I know is that I wasn’t all that sleepless when it was on for the seventh time. Seriously, you need to leave the house.” He tilts his shades down a little, which Jake takes to mean that he means serious business.

“I suppose a change of scenery isn’t something I’d be totally averse to,” he says carefully.

“Great,” Dave says, pushing his shades up his nose again, “I know just the place.”

 

 

 

 

GG: thats the worst idea ive ever heard dave!!!

TG: jade

TG: you know i love you

TG: in a totally mans best friend way

GG: >:(

TG: sorry i had to

TG: but anyway

TG: this idea is definitely going to work

GG: your idea stinks and is going to fall flat on its dumb idea face

TG: dont personify my ideas just to bully them

TG: but seriously all i need is them both to show up at the right time right 

TG: jakes weird goofy charm will do the rest 

TG: dude can barely go into the kitchen without raising the hormone levels in the room to dangerous heights

TG: him in a bar is going to be some 1990s star trek fanfiction level fuckery

TG: and by fuckery i mean sexual tension

GG: yeah dave because its suuuuch a good idea to send my grandpa to get ravaged in a bar :/ thats totally going to solve everything!

TG: i know

TG: im a fucking genius jade

TG: that guy doesnt have a jealous bone in his body but dirk is probably jealous of the guys socks for keeping his feet warm

TG: this is all gonna work out i can feel it

GG: ugh

GG: when this goes wrong im gonna kick your butt! and thats *before* rose gets around to doing whatever weird things she has planned to it!

TG: i did not need reminding of that

  


 

Jake shoves his face into his phone the moment the warm air of the bar hits him. While there are significantly less people than he had feared, there are still more strange faces than he had hoped.

Despite being a so-called functioning member of society for the past ten years, he has done as much as possible to avoid larger parts of it. Mood depending, of course. There has been many a day where he’s felt invigorated enough to run to the nearest shop and chat to every patron he sees, enthused and accompanied by many an extravagant hand gesture. Days where he’s felt well enough to advertise whatever invention he’s come up with on days where he’s felt not so well, marked with the boyish charm of an accidental businessman.

Today is not a day where he feels up to this, however. He hasn’t felt up to entertaining the people of Can Town for quite some time and the feeling of anxiety sits like a ball in the pit of his stomach. He shuffles towards the counter, looking around like a meerkat over the top of his phone, to try to find a familiar face. But none immediately come into view. He frowns.

 

golgothasTerror began pestering turntechGodhead

 

GT: Er dave? 

GT: Not to be a nag but could you tell me when you plan on moseying down here?

GT: I was under the impression that the agenda was that we would meet at ten.

TG: sorry

TG: somethings come up

TG: have fun man

GT: What???

turntechGodhead ceased pestering golgothasTerror

GT: STRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIDER!!!!!

 

Jake grits his teeth and shoves his phone back into his pocket. He’s frustrated for a moment and, if he’s honest with himself, just a touch angry. But that eventually ebbs away and gives way to a much different feeling. He supposes he has been imposing on Dave and Karkat for some time. It can’t be much fun to have movie nights with Debbie Downer gooseberrying between them, right? He can hardly find fault with whatever hairbrained scheme this is that Dave’s concocted just to get rid of him for the night.

He mutters under his breath, reaching over the counter to take a glass of water without asking.

“Excuse me?”

Jake immediately comes to the conclusion that you must have to actually ask for a glass of water from the bartender and not just take it. He mentally chides himself. No one else would possibly be stupid enough to do this. But when he looks up, the bartender isn’t looking at him, so he slowly turns his head to regard the woman standing beside him.

Her hand is a few inches away from his elbow on the counter and she coughs to bring his attention to her face. Her lips are painted red and her dark hair falls around her inquisitive eyes. She’s a stranger in so much as Jake doesn’t recognise her personally, but familiar in the sense of how many women he’s seen throughout the years that bare a similar look. He gulps.

“I think I know you from somewhere,” she continues, once she’s gotten his attention.

One could say that Jake English had a problem with pretty girls. In another life, he potentially could have been something of a ladies man; a real charmer with intentional suave and a girl in every court. In another life, he would have just as much interest in bold, attractive women who approached him in bars he frequented far more often and he possibly would have been bold enough himself to take them up on kind offers. He has always had a weakness for assertive women and maybe, if he’d never played a silly game that left him with with a too-slowly decreasing amount of nightmares, he’d be weak for them in a way that meant something more than his inability to assert himself in their presence.

He takes a sloppy gulp of his water and she watches patiently as he fumbles to dry his face on his sleeve. “I was on the box,” he manages to get out, wetly.

“The box..,” she says, “Oh of course! God, you’re that guy from the ad!”

He coughs into the crook of his elbow, managing a nod. He thinks for a second that he can handle this and then her friend leans around her, trailing curled hair on the damp countertop, and stops that thought in its tracks.

“See I told you it was the Skaianet guy!” she says, matter of factly, “Just better in person, right?”

Jake’s muscles freeze up a little and his hand stops jittering the glass against the counter top. His lips pull into a line as his eyes dart between the two of them. One person was enough to talk to, but with his attention split between two, the room starts to feel a little smaller and he starts to feel a little more hot under the collar, and not in the way he should be when faced with two pretty ladies talking to him.

As if paradox space itself had took it upon himself to aggravate the ball worming its way around Jake’s stomach, a man takes that opportunity to drop his elbow down on his shoulder. He immediately freezes up completely, going rigid and stiff in his seat. The elbow is far too close to his neck and far too attached to a stranger’s body to have any business being on his person when he’s already so out of his depth.

“Alright, break it up you two. You’re like a pack of hyenas,” he says. For the first time, Jake acknowledges how even the most impish grins on some young ladies’ faces are starting to look threatening.

“We were just talking,” says the first girl, in a way that might be defensive if she wasn’t already laughing.

“Yeah right,” he says, rolling his eyes. He regards Jake with an easy grin that should make him relax slightly but doesn’t actually help at all. His elbow moves so his hand can rest on Jake’s shoulder, which also doesn’t make him feel any better. “I’d run while you still can, man. Nothing stays ‘just talking’ when it comes to these two and some hot guy.”

Jake’s body goes cold.

The conversation continues over him but not in a way that he can hear over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. There’s a sharp pain in the front of his forehead that closing his eyes and scrunching his eyebrows together can’t ease up. His hands fidget of their own accord by his sides and he can feel cool droplets of sweat thickening down the back of his neck.

“Hey?”

The hand is on Jake’s arm now, just above his elbow. It jitters steadily but the hand is pressing down, restricting his movement. He has to get away. He has to get out from under the hand before-”

“Are you okay-”

He was just going to remove the hand. He was just going to push it off him and run, as he always does, for the nearest exit; until he got some air back into his aching lungs and swallowed it up like cold ice into his chest, pasting himself together.

Somewhere, that turns into dragging the hand down to the ground with him, flinging the person attached to it on to his back on the floor in one, fluid motion. There’s a sickening slapping sound of skin and muscle making contact with the wet, slimy feel of floor tiles. The bar goes as silent as is possible over the sound of thumping music. Jake can feel the glide of gazes over him, the squelching feeling of grating eyeballs over every inch of exposed skin on his face, neck, arms, legs. He wishes he had a coat. He wishes he had a sheet to drag over him until he disappeared into nothingness under an excess of material, wrapped over and over and over again until there was nothing covetable or distinguishable about him.

“Jake?”

He backs away from the man he’s thrown to the ground, looking desperately over his shoulder. Rose stands a few feet away, Kanaya’s hand holding her arm in a way that almost looks defensive. Her brow is furrowed and if Jake was ever any good at reading expressions he certainly wasn’t good at them now. The blown out candle on their table has been knocked over.

Jake runs.

 

 

 

timaeusTestified began pestering turntechGodhead

 

TT: Where are you?

TG: what do you mean where am i 

TT: You’re not here, so I think it’s a pretty normal question to ask. 

TG: wheres jake

TT: Jake?

TG is jake not there

TT: Why the fuck would Jake be here?

TG: fuck

 

turntechGodhead has ceased pestering timaeusTestified

 

TT: What??

 

 

“Are we going to acknowledge what just happened?” Brain Ghost Dirk asks, blocking the way to the mini fridge in Jake’s room. Jake grunts in response, pushing past him to grab a carton of nut milk. His phone buzzes threateningly in his back pocket but he ignores it, opting to chug the entire carton of milk instead. He discards the carton on the floor and flops down on one of the beanbags, burying his face in the fabric.

“You decked a dude, bro. That’s not something you can play the avoidance game with. You’re going to have to wake up and smell the trauma scented roses.” He immediately hunkers down beside Jake after he flops, who desperately tries not to look at him. “You’re just another messed up kid on the block.”

“I know!” Jake hisses through his teeth, propping himself up. “Do you honestly think I don’t get that? I’m completely two croissants short of a breadbasket and that’s never going to change! I can’t even talk to people without this happening! What kind of milquetoast man of inaction am I that I can’t even make conversation without resorting to casting out like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs??”

Brain Ghost Dirk stays uncharacteristically silent. Jake reburies his face and, after a beat, Brain Ghost Dirk’s hand finds purpose in his hair. It’s an odd feeling, being comforted by a spirit without solid corporeal form. But it’s not impossible; either to feel it or be comforted somewhat by it.

“What am I supposed to do?” Jake says, voice muffled to a whisper, “You’re the only one who ever took the time to get it. You don’t look at me like I’m deranged when I don’t want to be knocked off. You remember to sit down when I do so you don’t stand over me. No one who didn’t go through this is ever going to get it and no one’s going to put up with me long enough to want to.”

“Do you mean me, or him?” Brain Ghost Dirk asks.

But Jake doesn’t know.

 

 

 

TT: I'd be lying if I said I didn't realise on some level that this day would have to come.

TT: I've been enabling you.

TT: Despite my best intentions, I don't think my lack of adequate qualifications can stretch far enough to deal with the complex issues the game brought up for us, both personally and interpersonally. I would suggest that I step down as group therapist given my blunder and the threat of unlikely but still very much unwanted divorce. But I also think I'm the only one who both has any knowledge of the subject who also has the experience of the matter at hand.

TT: Which, in simpler terms, I suppose means that I'm fucked up too and fucked up loves company.

TT: Besides, I think today's observation needs a hasty intervention and I think you already know what you need to do.

TT: Which I assure you, will be just as important to your growth as his.

TT: You need to acknowledge what happened. 

 

tentacleTherapist has ceased pestering gutsyGumshoe


	8. the one where dirk and jake kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which jane and jake finally have the conversation they should have had ten years ago (or at least start it) and everything comes out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two more chapters after this. that's all i'm gonna say for now
> 
> (also ctcm is officially the longest fic i've ever written! it surpasses my longest old fic from when i was 12 haha)

tentacleTherapist began pestering timaeusTestified

TT: I’m going to need you to go see Jake this afternoon. 

TT: Not that I’m not always down for some bro-on-bro action with the guy. 

TT: And trust me, we both know that I am, in every way imaginable. 

TT: Is there any particular reason you’re asking me to go like this is a requirement of your most intensive form of cognitive behavioural therapy yet?

TT: I think you know the reason as well as I do. 

TT: You’re being utterly ridiculous. 

TT: Thanks. Means a lot to hear you say that. 

TT: I’m not joking with you. 

TT: I’ll admit, I found your utter incompetence as amusing as the next person at the beginning of this endeavour but my patience is beginning to wear thin. There is only so much of your tragic interpersonal shenanigans even I can bear before it becomes wholly insufferable. 

TT: It sounds like you mean business. 

TT: I do, but this business is firmly entering receivership. Such is the sad state of late-day capitalism that I simply can’t keep my charitable organisation’s doors open much longer. 

TT: What a shame that the boy problems must be rectified internally. 

TT: We did hear about the horrors of outsourcing but, alas, none of us listened. 

TT: I get it, alright?

TT: You’re sick of listening to me.

TT: Classic case of Strider Fatigue, though the strangest one I’ve seen in my career yet. 

TT: You’re outside of the likely demographic though I’ve seen different strains affect even asymptomatic carriers so this is wholly unsurprising. 

TT: Jake still cares about you, you know.

TT: Care was never up for debate here. 

TT: Why is it so hard for you to believe that maybe this is something you can actually fix for once?

TT: We’ve discussed this at length and yet every time you have the opportunity to put it into practice, you regress like a child re-entering the mirror stage. 

TT: Yes, that’s still you, Dirk, but your reflection is as capable of changing as you are. 

TT: Okay. 

TT: Okay?

TT: Yeah, I have no idea what you’re talking about. 

TT: I was kind of hoping you’d just drop it. 

TT: You’re infuriating. 

TT: Go talk to Jake.

TT: Why?

TT: Because you want to and he wants you to too. That should be enough for you.

 

 

The knock on the door startles Jake awake. Before wondering why someone would be knocking on his door at eight sharp, he creaks his bones and stretches with a wince, coming to the quick realisation that he’s not as young and spry as he used to be and should probably not fall asleep on the beanbag.

But it’s just so inviting!

Then he wonders why someone would be knocking on his door at eight sharp. Bleary-eyed, he pulls out his phone, turning it on and watching the stream of messages pour in. His heart sinks.

 

TT: Jake?

TT: Kanaya and I are concerned for your wellbeing. If you feel inclined to disclose your current status to us, it would be helpful, but it’s not necessary. 

TT: Jane will be over in the morning. 

  
  


TG: dude

TG: i got rose in one ear and karkat in the other so im gonna spare you a terminal case of the red miles

TG: where you at

TG: no dont answer that 

TG: i already know where you are

TG: i guess my question is why

TG: no

TG: i already know that too

TG: fuck

TG: i guess my question is sorry bro

TG: which isn’t even a question

TG: im not asking you if im sorry or not that would be a new level of socially inept that i like to think im past by now if i was ever there to begin with

TG: this sucks

TG: give me the down low whenever youre feeling up to it man

TG: i can offer a solid apology screening of music and lyrics for bailing on you

TG: ttyl

  
  


TG: lil birdy told me ur not feelin too good

TG: dw i ddnt get any saucy deets this time

TG: janey said shes headin up to you asap so this is ur yrly friendly rox reminder abt…………….

TG: (is that enough dots 4 u to be super suspish yet)

TG: abt THE THING

TG: u know what i mean

TG: dnt mess it up this time wonderboy im SO not in the mood 2 deal w bff drama 2day

  
  


GG: Jake, I’m outside. 

 

She’s what now? Jake looks warily at the door.

Don’t get him wrong, Jane is a good friend. Easily one of his best, even if it’s only because his friend group hasn’t expanded much since they created civilisation. She was always his best friend, if not because he was most fond of her then because she was never the cause of any of his multiple beatings. Until she was.

However, since the game’s finish and their prior spat, their contact has been basically nil. Sure, they exchange pleasantries in groups and she doesn’t leave the room when he enters it anymore, but Jake has come to accept that, for whatever reason, they’re never going to achieve the level of familiarity they once had again. He supposes there’s multiple levels to it, when he gets down to the real nitty gritty of their previously tumultuous and destructive interpersonal relationship, but he also supposes that Jane never quite saw it the way he did.

Which is a shame, because he does honestly miss her, even if he’s not entirely sure she’s the same person she was when she was his best friend.

So, it is an incredibly odd sight to see Jane standing on his threshold when he opens the door. He hasn’t seen her out of professional attire for some time and it’s somewhat of a time warp to see her in daily clothes, her Ghostbusters t-shirt tucked into the front of her jeans. However, she still looks like she means business, even in casual clothes, and Jake feels hideously unprepared. He’s still wearing flannel pyjama bottoms, and he’s fairly certain his eyes are puffed up and dark with the telltale signs of a bad night’s sleep.

“Jake,” she says, and it sounds curt enough for Jake to twitch, just a little.

“Well, howdy Jane,” he says in response. He determines it’s best to fake it until he makes it, as he determines with most things, and plasters a trademarked grin right across his face. He’s learned over the years that he looks far less like the walking disaster he so often is if he just smiles his way through it. “I take it this is about your birthday?”

Jane pauses, her tongue audibly clicking behind her teeth. Her expression doesn’t look quite as harsh as he’d took it when he first opened the door. Perhaps he said the right thing for once or, more than likely, he read her expression wrong to begin with. “Not quite,” she starts before humming again, “But yes? In a way, I suppose. What I mean to say is, I’m not here on planning business.”

Planning business makes Jake think that there’s a party happening. When to Jane, he needs to keep on his toes and make careful note of the smaller things she says. It’s an exhausting procedure he was already accustomed to with Dirk, but he’s learned the hard way that other people can be just as impossible to take at face value. “So er,” he says, shifting out of the way so she can cross through the doorway, “What does being you all the way out here then?”

She looks out of place in his room. Most people do, however, as a side effect of Jake rarely having anyone over. Dirk and Jade, sure, but most people choose to meet him elsewhere and he’s glad of having a space to himself without unwanted visitors pushing their way in constantly. Not that Jane would be unwanted, exactly, but he does have to admit he prefers her in group settings than alone. Something still makes his heart race at the idea of being alone with her. He leaves the door ajar.

“All the way out here, you’d swear you lived a million miles away,” she says, tutting under her breath. Jake breathes a sigh of relief. That’s normal. “You’re just upstairs, J.”

“You have a point. Sharp as a tack as usual.” He waits for her to pull out a wooden chair to sit on before he perches himself on the edge of the coffee table. He’s not going to make a mistake of sitting in one of those beanbags again. His bones are still protesting.

Jane stays silent a moment longer, brows knotted together. It’s an expression Jake can parse with much ease. It’s the one he gets himself when he has no idea how to start a difficult conversation. As such, he squirms in slight discomfort, waiting for the shoe to drop.

“Rose spoke to me yesterday,” she says finally and Jake freezes up.

“Oh,” he says.

“She didn’t tell me much so don’t get yourself in a twist.” She crosses her legs, resting her palms on her knee. “I just think...well, she thinks it’s time we had a talk.”

He stays silent. He doesn’t want to discuss what happened yesterday with anyone, but he certainly has no intentions of discussing it with Jane. Despite humiliating himself in a crowded bar, it’s ultimately a private affair and he’s more than a little peeved that Rose appears to be telling anyone who’ll listen.

“Jake,” she tries before sighing, looking away, “This is something that should really be talked about over a cup of tea.”

“I don’t have any tea,” he says, only a touch apologetic.

“Of course you don’t.” She sighs again. “Look, I’m not even entirely sure what I’m supposed to say here! Forgive me, but I don’t really want to drag what happened back then up again. I really don’t see the point in airing our dirty laundry out and expecting anything from it and I have the sneaking suspicion that you’d rather do anything else.”

She’s right there. Short of actually going through it again, Jake would do near anything to avoid talking about it. He’s shamelessly predictable.

The silence spans out uncomfortably between them again. Jake wrings his hands in his lap, staring at his bare feet against the rug. Jane’s gaze leaves him and trails up to the ceiling where the dawn sun offers a far less inviting sight than the stars. “I think I should start with an apology,” she says finally, and that makes Jake’s head shoot up.

“What?” he says.

Jane’s expression is dry. “Is it honestly that surprising to you that I feel guilty about all that happened between us?” she says and Jake immediately feels guilty in turn, even if not entirely justly.

“No er. I just.” He fumbles for words. “You never said anything afterwards. I always assumed it was just…”

“What I actually felt?”

“Maybe?” he tries, “Or maybe that it was what I deserved? That maybe it was your way of giving me my just desserts for being such a thoughtless cur to you. I can’t say I’d exactly blame you.”

“Well you should,” she says hotly, “I mean, if I’d have done something so utterly dreadful to you because you forgot my _birthday_ ? Or if I thought it was _okay_ because we had a silly falling out-- Jake, that’s plain old sadistic!”

As happens often, Jake doesn’t have a response. He’s able to look at Jane’s face now at least and he searches it for discernable emotion. Her eyebrows are pinched together and her mouth is curled, but he doesn’t think the expression is distaste aimed at him.

“I guess I never gave you any good reason to believe I wasn’t, though,” she says after a moment and Jake, with a twinge of regret, realises he was probably supposed to answer. “I mean, I never even apologised afterwards! I was so _embarrassed_ and--ugh.” She pauses to push her glasses up her nose, taking a shaky breath. “Embarrassed, I don’t even know _why._ Shame would have been reasonable but _embarrassment._ It was incredibly self-centred of me.”

Jake has no idea really what she’s talking about and his eyebrows pull together in concern. “Jumping jehosaphats, Jane, it’s not like I did much apologising either!”

“I think what I did negated any necessity for you to ask me for forgiveness,” she says, frankly, and he quiets down again. “So, I guess what I needed to say was that what I did with the tiara was because of the tiara, nothing else. It wasn’t because we had an argument and I didn’t hate you. It was just the tiara. Though, I suppose it was partly me too, if only the part of me that was reprehensibly entitled. I guess it came with the inheritance. And I’m sorry.”

He should try to argue with her and tell her that her judgement of her own character is off and extreme. But instead, when he tries, what comes out is, “I’m sorry too.”

“You don’t need to apologise for our silly argument, Jake,” she says, standing up. “I suppose I came a little early in the morning but if you ever need to talk about this, I’m willing. And I’m not just saying that to be nice. I’m saying it because I’m your friend.”

For a moment, Jake is very grateful that tears do not start to swell behind his eyes. He really doesn’t want to cry if he can help it. Instead, he just nods firmly, following her as she makes her way across the room to leave. “Thanks, Janey. You were always a real pal.” He nudges her shoulder with his own and she smiles awkwardly and shoulders him back. It’s enough for now.

“And Jake?” she says, just before she reaches the door.

“Yes?”

“Shucks buster was always our thing.” And, like that, she’s gone again.

 

 

gardenGnostic began pestering gallowsCalibrator 

GG: so a little birdy told me that youre looking for a fish!

GG: why didnt you tell me?? im great at finding animals!

GC: 1'M 4LR34DY PR3TTY GOOD 4T SN1FF1NG 1F TH4T'S WH4T YOU'R3 OFF3R1NG

GC: 1T'S K1ND OF MY TH1NG, R3M3MB3R?

GG: okay i guess :p but did you find a fish?

GC: NO

GG: maybe youre losing your touch! or smell in this case?

GG: anyway theres this nice lake i used to go to all the time and it had a ton of fish in it!

GC: D1D YOU 34T TH3M?

GG: no!

GG: though i will admit some poorer mannered genes of mine did get a little rowdy :/

GG: but it definitely wouldnt be that hard to catch one!

GC: TH4T'S BOR1NG

GG: i guess those fish could use a bit of excitement in their lives :/ why do you need a fish so bad anyway??

GC: 4ND TH4T'S 4 S3CR3T!

GG: i feel like a lot of people have secrets these days!!!

GC: H3H3H3H3

 

 

When Jake opens the door this time, it’s Dirk standing on his threshold.

“Strider?” he says incredulously. He’s somewhat grateful that he decided to get dressed eventually.

“Jake,” he says, leaning on the door frame. He makes no attempt to enter the room and Jake doesn’t move to let him by. “Quick question.”

“Er, do you need milk again?” Jake asks, gesturing to the mini fridge behind him. Dirk shakes his head.

“Why did you keep this thing between us up for so long?” he says, after a long moment of Jake wondering if he was going to say much of anything. The question stumps him for a second, not because he doesn’t have an answer because the question is honestly completely ridiculous. Why does anyone stay with anyone?

“Because I liked you,” Jake says, simply, without thinking about what consequences there might be for voicing this finally, “Like you. I would have assumed it was obvious, all things considered.”

Something unreadable flashes across Dirk’s face. It could be annoyance. He doesn’t think it’s belief. “Jake, if you like me so much, how come you can’t just tell me?” He steps over the threshold, hands in his pockets. His eyes are hard but it’s easy to tell from his movements that his hands are fidgeting nervously, precariously in his jean pockets. “Or hell, even show it just a little, if you do. Just man up and do _something_ already because, I swear to--”

Something sparks in Jake’s chest. Man up and _do_ something? He was the one who left in the first place! Surely he should be the one swanning around, the one man-ing up to win him back. Though, Jake wasn’t the one who ever left in order to be won back. Aggressive reconciliation is a hard process, he determines, and not one he wants to be mulling over for any extended length of time when Dirk’s mouth is right there.

So he kisses him. Like a man.

Dirk’s mouth falls slack into the kiss almost immediately, completely taken aback. Jake doesn’t understand why it would be a surprise. They’ve kissed a thousand times before and he told him to show him. What could he do but oblige? It’s not like the thought hasn’t been turning over in his mind these past few months or anything.

When Dirk gets his bearings, he kicks the door shut behind him, hands going to grip Jake’s upper arms as the other pulls him even closer. With their chests flushed, Dirk steps forward and forward until Jake eventually trips in his backtrack, falling onto the beanbag with a small oof. His lips are only untaken for a moment before Dirk is climbing on too, a little clumsy and far more eager than Jake was explicitly expecting. Their hands find each other in the moments after their lips do.

It’s been months since Jake has had any opportunity to hone his kissing skills and it shows from the excessive amounts of saliva he never learned better from. It shouldn’t be remotely appealing, but Dirk has been a fool for every aspect of Jake since puberty hit and neither his tastes nor Jake’s skills have improved since. He’s perfectly satisfied subtly wiping his mouth whenever he pulls back, which is certifiably never again, even to breathe, if he can help it.

Jake’s fingers fist in the back of his hair, his grip eliciting a noise from the back of Dirk’s throat that’s incredibly familiar. As the minutes go on, Jake’s chest gets tighter. Familiarity is the easiest course to remedy any residual anxiety left, but Dirk is the one positive thing that can honestly get his heart racing so fast he thinks it might have to screech to a halt. He grips at Dirk’s waist, tugging him in as their lips slot perfectly together, like jigsaw pieces. For a moment, he doesn’t even care that Dirk ran off for months on end. He doesn’t even care that Dirk kissed another man.

And then he does.

One could never mistake Jake English for an attentive man. He tries, but when one hundred things are happening at once and many of them involve a sudden influx of hormones in his person, he’s not the most reliable when it comes to remembering the small facts. But once he remembers that Dirk went on a date with another man, that he’d saw Dirk _kiss_ another man, it hits him like a freight train and everything comes to a standstill.

He shoves Dirk’s chest, pulling away from his lips with a desperate wheeze for air. Dirk immediately chases his lips, eyes not even opening until Jake shoves him once again.

“You have a paramour,” he gets out, once he catches his breath.

Dirk pauses in his attempts to continue their session, staring blankly at him. “Pretty sure I don’t, man,” he says carefully.

“You do, I met the fellow remember!” Jake says, indignant, “He waltzed right into the kitchen while I was there! And I saw you cashing cheques for him well after bank closing hours too!” Dirk pauses. He breathes heavily through his nose. And is silent. Jake’s mouth curls. “Well you can forget it if you think I’m going to keep kissing a taken man!”

“Yeah, no. I don’t have a boyfriend,” he says, leaning in again. Jake huffs, leaning back. “I don’t. Dude, it was John.”

“It was who now?” Jake says, brows furrowing.

“John. He just dressed up as a clown. I don’t think that was the look he was going for but definitely not my taste. I hear some people are totally down for the clowns. It’s a niche pornography business definitely. But I don’t personally find red squeaky noses to be made of boyfriend material. They’re solid plastic.”

“You dated John,” Jake says, disbelieving.

“I didn’t date him, it was like. It was a fake date,” he says, finally. “I wanted you to think I had a boyfriend because I didn’t. So I guess I just figured if you thought I had a boyfriend you wouldn’t lose all respect for me. Though I’m fairly certain if I’d honestly picked Humphrey Clowndick for a date, everyone would have lost respect for me anyway.”

“A fake date,” Jake repeats.

“Yeah,” he replies, averting his eyes slightly. It’s ridiculously embarrassing to admit his own failure to impress to the one person he specifically wanted to impress. “Just needed you to think I was a catch. Which is just as pathetic as it sounds.”

“Needed me to think,” Jake repeats.

“Uh.” Dirk frowns, just a little, brow creasing. “Yeah. I know it’s mighty embarrassing and all, dude, but are you just going to repeat everything I say? I don’t need to hear it twice to know that I’m kind of a dumbass and this whole plan was horseshit from the very beginning.”

“Whole plan,” Jake repeats, teeth gritted.

“Dude seriously, will you quit it already? You’re--”

“I will not _quit_ it!!!” he says suddenly and it’s like something visibly snaps in the room. Jake’s glasses are still slightly askew but not enough that they hide the fury flickering behind them as he fullbody shoves Dirk up off him and onto his feet. The other stumbles back, gaining his footing again when his hand finds purchase on the counter. “You _manipulated_ me! Again!!!”

“I,” Dirk starts. His tongue is tied in knots in the way it so often is around Jake but never in this context. “What? No--”

Jake’s already stumbling to his feet, storming over to jab Dirk’s chest accusingly with his finger. “Every time I think we’ve got past this, we just end up right back here, don’t we! To be perfectly honest, this is even worse! What, did you just swan out of bed and think, oh gee this courtship with Jake is getting a bit tedious, I’ll just manipulate his feelings to spice things up a bit!!!”

This can’t be happening. Dirk makes a feeble attempt to take Jake’s wrists, only for the other to wrench them back twice as fast. “Don’t _do_ that! For all that is good and frigging holy how many times to I have to _say_ that?! I can’t _think_ when you do that, not that I shitfucking want to think  about you orchestrating this whole thing just to stroke your fucking ego!”

“It wasn’t like that,” he protests, weakly. He can handle punches. He can hold himself together in physical confrontation. But there’s rarely been a time in his life when someone has honestly _yelled_ at him and he’s completely out of his depth.

“Then what was it like??” Jake asks, voice raised. His hackles are visibly up and Dirk has no way of diffusing this. “You dumped me like a hooked salmon and then deliberately went full naughty pooch on me with your _fake boyfriend_ that you got for the sole purpose of making me feel like yesterday’s sliced pan! And for what, Strider? To further confirm your appeal at my expense? To trick me and see if I _really_ were fond of you?? To mess with my emotions so I’d call to action???”

“That’s,” Dirk tries. Words are failing him now more than ever. “That’s not why I broke up with you?”

An indignant noise leaves the back of Jake’s throat, rough and frustrated. “Ish kabibble!!! Just frigging _save_ it, Dirk, and get out!”

“What?” he manages to get out before Jake’s fisting his shirt and full body forcing him towards the door. Jake is definitely stronger than his noodle arms let on. “No wait, come on, I can--”

“Get-- out!!!” Jake repeats and, in the blink of an eye, Dirk is on the other side of the slamming door, his ears ringing not quite loud enough to cover the sound of the hatch closing.

Shit.

 

 

timaeusTestified began pestering golgothasTerror

 

TT: Jake.

TT: Come on, dude, you know it wasn’t like that. 

TT: It was just

TT: Fuck. 

TT: I don’t know what it was like. I just know it wasn’t like what you think it was like. 

TT: Looks like manipulation. Smells like manipulation. Tastes like manipulation. 

TT: But it’s not manipulation. 

TT: It was just regular old manipulation-substitute. 

TT: I can’t believe it’s not manipulation. 

TT: I suppose in this context manipulation-substitute means my general ineptitude at basic communication?

TT: Fuck. 

TT: You’re pissed off with me. I could tell when you pushed me out the door like the last lost supermarket trolley rolling around the canstop carpark. 

TT: You should just come out here and finish what we were doing. I hear that burns off steam. 

TT: Or you could help me make that application that deletes pesterchum messages? That would be great either. I’m in desperate need. I’m starting to think me not having it is breaking the Geneva Conventions. 

TT: Jake. 

TT: I’m sorry, okay?

TT: I fucked up. I’m sorry I fucked up, but it’s kind of my thing. 

TT: It’s like I see something perfect and think, damn, it sure would be a shame if someone were to fuck that up. 

TT: And then I fulfill my own damn foreshadowing and become that someone. 

TT: I’ve got the Midas touch and everything I touch turns to fuck up. 

TT: Except you, but also sort of everything I have with you?

TT: You’re the least fucked up thing in my life, dude. 

  
  


tipsyGnostalgic began pestering timaeusTestified 

 

TG: distri i cant get a hold of j so you better b w/ him rn

TG: so stop touchin bases w/ him 4 a mo bc i need to touch bases w/ u about the party in a way less sexc way

TG: no offence

TT: What. 

TG: is2g if u forgot

TG: i mean itll totes prove my hypothesis that being useless w/ this shit is a boy thing and its super friggin contagious

TG: (always knew it was a mattr of time dirky)

TG: but ill also b soooo super pissed if u forgot janeys bday tmrow

TT: …

TG: omg you totally forgot

TG: u bettr show i mean its been a FULL decade

TG: can u blieve its been 10 yrs?

 

timaeusTestified is an idle chum!

 

TG: ???


	9. the one with the bend and snap (but in that way)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jade and dirk talk. jake and karkat watch legally blonde. dave and rose call it off. john, i mean, humphrey drowns in gushers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three months later than I said I would have the final chapter done by, I have the penultimate chapter. The epilogue comes next- stay tuned
> 
> Also, since the last update here I've posted two one-shots! (Priorities...) Make sure to check them out if you haven't already :) though the mood is entirely different
> 
> IMPORTANT NOTE: the following chapter deals with suicide in a non-graphic manner, but in a less offhand manner than it has been presented up until now. This has the potential to make someone uncomfortable. If you think it might affect you, the chapter can be read without the section- just skip from Rose and Jade's conversation to Roxy and Jane's. 
> 
> Also note: opinions expressed in this chapter are not necessarily held by me nor do I give my endorsement of any specific self-care techniques or lack thereof.

ectoBiologist began pestering gutsyGumshoe

 

EB: alright, what’s the big idea?

EB: i mean, sure, it’s your birthday. but gee jane did you ever stop to think when my birthday is?? because it might surprise you to learn that it’s actually my birthday too! shocker! 

EB: now, i love a prank as much as the next ecto-kin and, don’t get me wrong, i can especially appreciate a birthday prank. 

EB: but this?

EB: this is stone cold.

GG: I have no idea what you’re talking about! But, I would ask that you kindly place any overflow of gushers in the mason jar next to the fridge. Some people don’t have quite as many aversions to my corporate expertise. 

EB: ugh! if you want them, come and get them yourself!

EB: what a cruel and unusual prank to play on your dearest pseudo-grandson! im tempted to call can town social services on you. 

GG: Oh calm down, it wasn’t even me! Besides, if I do say so myself, it shouldn’t be entirely unexpected. 

EB: oh come on who else would have easy access to this many gushers. 

GG: I didn’t say it wasn’t my idea.

EB: exactly!!!

GG: But I’m far too busy to execute such a lengthy prank. I am organising a birthday party after all. 

GG: That being said, you seemed like a rather unlikely candidate for our humble gathering of people who have unfortunately kissed Dirk Strider. 

EB: what???   


GG: Don’t forget to clean up the gushers before the party, John. :B

  
  


 

 

“So, I’m thinking sushi tonight,” Rose ponders. 

Kanaya looks over her shoulder, brows raised, as she pauses midway through placing a fork in the small, apartment sized dishwasher she has sitting on the counter. It is an unspoken fact that the reason some people have made it so long remaining in the communal living quarters is their determination to use as little of the communal resources as possible. Some sectors having built in kitchens really facilitates this. The dishwasher is generally kept in the cupboard when not being used though, which is more often than Kanaya would like. This is Rose’s designated chore but, after living immaculately for most of her childhood in the most unpleasant fashion, she sometimes finds comfort in eating with her hands. Kanaya, not so much. 

“I thought we were attending the party,” Kanaya replies, turning back and closing the door. Rose beckons her over lazily. She’s lying on the sofa, propped up on one elbow and lounging at a slant. Kanaya approaches and sits daintily on the arm of the sofa, only to be tugged down unceremoniously with a startled noise. They lie for a while in an uncomfortable tangle of limbs and cloth. 

“Sorry,” Rose says, after a moment of easy silence. 

“It’s alright. I’m more than used to your human roughhousing. Consider it a much valued cultural exchange.”

Rose snorts and Kanaya grins into her lower back, the movement felt if not seen. “I meant about the other night,” she elaborates, “And in general, I suppose. I haven’t been my most attentive this month.”

“On the contrary, I think you’ve been rather attentive,” Kanaya replies. She won’t lie and say she was in no manner peeved to have her first dinner with her spouse in five weeks be interrupted by an incessant dual need for meddling. 

“To our resident pueri aeterni, maybe,” Rose continues with a sigh, sitting up a little again. Kanaya moves with her to relieve some of the pressure on her back. They maneuver until Kanaya can kneel up, Rose resting her forearms on her lap. 

“Do you think that maybe it’s time to relinquish your duties to a, not to be dismissive, therapist?” Kanaya asks, her lips quirking up. Rose raises her brows and looks mock offended for a moment until both of them lose it and grin, looking away from each other to compose. 

“I think it’s time I start charging,” she says, “By the hour. Every problem I have to solve outside of my office hours is overtime. Perhaps we could afford our own place by the summer?”

Kanaya hums. “I kind of like it here,” she says finally. 

Rose looks unconvinced, even more so as her phone chimes in a telltale fashion from her sylladex. She sighs and ejects it, tapping Pesterchum open. “Distractions and all,” she says.

  
  


 

 

carcinoGeneticist began pestering tentacleTherapist

 

CG: HELLO ROSE. IF AT ALL FUCKING POSSIBLE, I WOULD LIKE TO ENQUIRE AS TO WHERE THE EVERLOVING FUCK DIRK STRIDER IS.

CG: SPECIFICALLY SEEING AS I AM FUCKNUTS DEEP IN HUMAN NOTTING HILL RIGHT NOW AND I AM READY TO TEAR MY GLANCE NUGGETS OUT WITH A PARTICULARLY SHARP THREE-PRONGED CUTLERY UTENSIL. 

TT: Nice try, Dave.

TT: I’ll be over in half an hour. Might I suggest distracting him with something slightly more engaging in the meantime? I hear John Tucker Must Die is a classic. 

CG: jesus fucking christ rose

CG: i already dont know how he got the gushers but if he manages to get a thong ill be traumatised but not remotely surprised

 

 

 

 

tentacleTherapist began pestering gardenGnostic

 

TT: Is Dirk in the lake?

GG: hi rose!! how did you know i was at the lake :/

GG: you know im supposed to be the psychic of the group! >:0

TT: I apologise. It certainly wasn’t my intention to infringe upon your position as witchy enigmatic of our sorry band of tragedies. 

GG: hehe its okay :) ill let it slide………once

TT: Duly noted. Is Dirk in the lake?

GG: why would dirk be in the lake??   


TT: Oh, you know. 

GG: im sorry rose i dont know what to tell you! i dont even know when i l

GG: never mind hes in the lake :/ 

  
  


It takes about thirty seconds for Jade to wade out to Dirk and to wade back to shore, dragging him along the water by the back of his shirt as he sputters wetly but clearly knows better than to fight back. She shoves him up on to dry land with startlingly little effort and Dirk looks at her, a little awestruck and a little scared, as she towers over him. 

“You ate my ice-cream!” she says accusingly, jabbing her finger into his chest. 

His face falls into one of confusion. “I did what?”

“My ice-cream! You ate it and then you blamed it on Jake! Roxy told me.”

The self-cleaning litter tray he has in prototype development immediately is categorised as a low priority in his mind. “I didn’t blame it on Jake. I just didn’t admit fault. Besides, you really have to put your name on things.”

Her hands go to her hips. “It was right there on the lid! I even put a daisy sticker beside it!”

“Are you sure? I think I would’ve seen a daisy sticker. That seems pretty fuckin’ memorable.”

“This is really stupid,” Terezi says and Dirk looks at her owlishly. How long has she even been there? What is she holding in her cupped hands? As if she can sense what he’s thinking, she continues, “Like this fish. Jade, this is a really dumb fish.”

Jade looks aghast. “He isn’t  _ dumb!  _ And stop holding him like that! I gave you a bag for a reason!”

“I wonder what he tastes like,” Terezi ponders and Jade lets out a disgusted noise. 

“Don’t-- Terezi don’t  _ lick  _ the fish! That’s gross! You’re going to kiss my mother with that mouth!”

Dirk watches in resignation as Jade wrestles the fish out of a cackling Terezi’s hands, tossing it back into the water with such desperation that Dirk's surprised it survives the impact and swims away happily. Terezi watches it go, nonplussed.

“Well, now what am I going to get her?”

“You said the fish was dumb!”

“I don't see any better fish.” Terezi pulls a face. “These fish are all fresh-water babies.”

“Well duh! It's a lake! You hardly thought we were going to catch a shark, did you?”

“What?” Dirk interjects and they both turn on him and his evident confusion.

“She's getting a fish for Jane,” Jade explains hurriedly, “Not that I'm all that certain she even wants one.”

Dirk groans. He'd almost put it out of his mind. Almost. It's some form of unwanted irony that he's managed to remain in the exact same position he had been in ten years ago to the day. It would be hilarious, if only it wasn't happening to him and hurting Jake wasn't collateral damage.

“Well, that's why we're out here. Now, cough up your reasons!” Jade says enthusiastically before looking over at Terezi. She shakes her head, evidently unimpressed with her attempts at playing bad cop, and Jade's ears fall comedically.

“I come here to think,” Dirk says, half truthfully. No one buys it.

“Rose knows you’re here. She messaged me to say you would be. Must be like your spot or something, huh?”

He shrugs. “She's just making sure she knows not to let me into her workspace later. She hates it when I trek water in.”

Jade frowns, one ear twitching. Terezi doesn't seem to be listening, instead peering over the edge of the lake as if she can actually see the fish within it. “Why do you go into the water at all?” she asks, suspiciously, “Can you even swim? You looked like you were drowning. Didn't you grow up in some kind of fishy apocalypse?”

“I can swim,” he says, defensively. Of course he can swim. “I'm just good at controlling myself.” Correction, he is good at controlling his physical responses. Over the years he has honed his abilities to repress his fight or flight response to danger, specifically in self created, life threatening circumstances. His instinct is no longer to swim, but to lay completely still until his mind blanks out for a few, blissfully enlightening, moments. And then, sometimes, he has clarity.

“You drown yourself,” Jade says, not asks, incredulously.

“That's fucked up,” Terezi answers distantly as she swipes a goldfish clean out of the water. She makes a face and drops it back in.

“It's fine,” he says, already on the defensive.

“It's not fine!” Jade spits and before he can register it her hand is flying out and grabbing him by the ear. He makes an embarrassing noise and she shakes his head up and down by it, painfully. “That's not healthy at all! Do you honestly think that killing yourself is okay just because we're gods? It still matters even if it doesn't really kill us!”

“It helps me-- cut that out! It helps me think!” Dirk manages to hiss out, wrenching away from her. Her hands immediately fly to her hips and he feels like he's being scolded by Jane, but a Jane that's more likely to punch him into next week. It's an instance where he doesn't see Jake in her at all, though he feels Jake punching his lights out wouldn't be ill deserved.

“That's ridiculous! You’re so melodramatic, just go do something else!” she says and Dirk feels frustration bubble over.

“It's not that fucking simple! I can't just meditate and, hey fucking presto, everything's better! That's not how it fucking works! Do you have any idea what it's like to have this kind of pressure on every single one of your actions? Where any wrong move could knock the foundations of the very building we call friendship right down to rubble? Do you have any idea how fucking exhausted I am being Dirk Strider every single fucking day? Is it so fucking irresponsible for me to want ten minutes of absolutely nothing, where nothing can break through and remind me that I'm one step away from being a colossal fuck-up and destroying everything? Maybe I just want it to end once in a while! Maybe, just once, I want there to be a fucking end to me! You have no fucking idea-”

He expects Jade to hit him, but instead she reaches out and grabs two fistfuls of his wet shirt, shaking him in frustration. He stops mid sentence, eyes wide. “Shut up!” she says, her voice raising a octave. “Just listen to yourself! You’re so freaking dramatic!”

Dirk makes an affronted, choked noise as she shakes him further. He swears he hears Terezi snicker from a few feet away. 

“Actually, it’s not just dramatic- it’s insulting and presumptuous and I’m starting to think that you’re an asshole!”

“Starting,” he manages to get out. 

She huffs. “Jake has been sweetening me up for years.” She lets him go and he falls to the grass with a wet-sounding thud. “You think I have no idea what it’s like? Well, gee, I don’t know what it’s like to be you but I think I’m pretty well informed about what it’s like to be me, and if you didn’t have your head shoved so far up your butt you might be able to see that it’s not all that different! You think just because you’ve got some funny powers and Dave’s brother was a pig means that you’ve got it so much worse than anyone else here? We’ve all fucked up, and we’ve all _been_ fucked up! So stop acting like you’re the most fucked up and that nobody gets it because you’ve had it worse and been worse than everyone else! Stop trying to quantify your issues so you have an excuse not to learn to cope with them properly!”

Dirk stays uncharacteristically silent as Jade catches her breath. After a few moments, her ears prick up again slightly and she runs a hand through her mass of hair. 

“It’s not quantifiable,” Terezi says with a shrug, before her mouth twists into a grin, “Trolls go through shit that would make even you break before they learn what quadrants are.”

“I don’t-” he starts, before thinking better of it. 

“We all have to learn how to live with it,” Jade says, after another few moments. Dirk almost thinks she looks like she regrets her outburst, but he can’t say he blames her. “But the key word is live.”

  
  


 

 

tipsyGnostalgic began pestering gutsyGumshoe

 

TG: sup bday gal

TG: not to be the biggest bearer of bad news

TG: the chumpiest of communiqué

TG: but contrary to what 20th century 1 hit wonders thin lizzy had to say bout it

TG: the boys r not back

TG: in town r nywhere w a workin cell signal apparently 

TG: in fact the boys r p much awol

TG: mia

TG: poofed 

GG: I’m aware. 

TG: u are??

GG: I keep a tight rein over all birthday business these days. What kind of hostess would I be if I weren’t privy to the whereabouts of my guests!

TG: janey i h8 2 break it 2 u but if theyre not here theyre kinda not guests

GG: This is also true. 

GG: Terezi is with Dirk. Apparently they’re meditating. 

TG: ok ok SO many things wrong w that sentence

TG: numero fuckin uno y is your sightly creepy gf not at YOUR bday bash??

TG: 2 who the fuck let her n dstrizzle team up??

TG: thats just askin 4 trouble

TG: what if they share funky eyewear tips

TG: 3 dstri is meditating??

TG: no offence janey but that sounds all kinds of fucking stupid

GG: Language. 

TG: sorry *silly

GG: Better. 

GG: Jake is gooseberrying Dave and Karkat from what I can gather. Similarly, I’ve gathered it’s probably Dave’s fault. 

TG: thats a new take

GG: Hush. 

GG: It’s got me thinking though…

TG: oh ur breaking out the elipses huh

TG: must be a p big reveal if ur buildin………………………..SUSPENSE

GG: Oh come off it, it’s not that big of a deal! I’m simply thinking that perhaps I could give the party a miss this year. 

TG: u say that like thats NOT a big frickin reveal

TG: janey youve been plannin this 4 months

TG: in both uses f the number 4

GG: Is a girl not allowed change her mind?

TG: no

TG: me and callie r comin ovr stat

GG: Well, if you insist. I’ll tell my dad to put some buns in the oven for us. 

TG: wud it b too 15 of me 2 say he can put buns in MY oven nytime? ;) js

GG: Never mind, you’re uninvited!

TG: just frickin’ try it 

  
  
  


 

Rose sticks her foot in the door before Dave can close it on her. She thinly hears the ending sounds of Legally Blonde in the background. Dave looks like he hasn’t slept, his eyes looking slightly rom-com crazed and depleted. 

“What did he fucking expect? That she’d throw the entire fucking movie away just because he decided it was, in fact, her he wanted to engage in the human custom of devotion and ring exchange with? What a fucking shitspewing bulgehump,” Karkat says, through the hall door. 

“Did you come here to gloat because I’m gonna have to ask you to come back at a better time,” Dave says dryly, “I’m missing the Harvard graduation speech, if you couldn’t tell. Not that I don’t know the whole thing off by heart by now. Do you know how many times I’ve watched Legally Blonde now, Rose?”

“I’m calling it off.”

“Seven fucking times, Rose. Seven. That’s approximately six and a half more times than I should have seen it. We haven’t even graduated to the sequel yet. Instead, we’ve just been watching Reese Witherspoon’s epic battle through law school and privilege for some John Travolta looking shmuck’s shitty Boer War era rock. I dropped a spoon earlier and I instinctively fucking snapped picking it up. I’m not a snapping man, Rose.”

Rose purses her lips. “You’re not a betting man either, Dave. I’m calling it off.”

“I can dig a girl who has the guts to call someone a frigid,” he stops, “Wait, you are? I’ve just been spinning you to try to prolong whatever sanctuary I had left before you exacted whatever you had planned for me.”

“I think I’ll find ample more opportunity to hang you from your ankles in my dungeon,” she says, dryly, “Don’t you think the collateral in this has gone a touch too far, even for me?”

“You don’t need to feel too sorry for me. I was grossly exaggerating my negative feelings for Legally Blonde.”

“I mean Jake,” she cuts across. Dave looks back over his shoulder in the direction of the sitting room. “And Dirk. I hope your home is prepared for two jungle dwellers. Jade has been berating me for close to an hour and I can only suspect you’re next.”

Dave turns back around, his brows furrowed. “What? Jade doesn’t even fucking like Dirk. She told me he stole her ice-cream or something, but last I checked the guy has an aversion to dairy like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I believe it,” Rose says shortly. She briefly considers the hulking mass of sweat she spoke to once upon a time. She regrets remembering him immediately. “She’s less concerned about him and more annoyed that we’ve, apparently, been letting him fester into a bigger assmunch.”

“Assmunch,” Dave repeats. 

“Between you and me, she is concerned. Probably rightfully.” Rose folds her arms, glancing away. It’s an uncharacteristic display of uncertainty. “Even aside from this bet of ours, I think we might have been dealing with this wrong. I most certainly have.”

“No shit,” Dave says, “We literally have no idea what we’re doing.”

“No shit,” Rose affirms. “Perhaps this is the risk we take when we allow children to become embroiled in traumatic situations and then try to fix the issues that result from that without a licensed therapist. I can only do so much, after all. Perhaps I should have proverbially thrown in the towel a while ago.” 

Dave shrugs. “Maybe we all just need to re-read the manual.”

Rose pauses, and raises her eyebrows. Then her lips quirk up. “Maybe we do.”


	10. the one with the ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which everyone moves on with their lives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter :) Have fun!

golgothasTerror began pestering gutsyGumshoe

 

GT: Ahoy jane!

GG: Jake! I assumed you’d forgotten! 

GT: What?

GT: No wait dont tell me! Its your birthday today!

GG: …

GT: How time flies! Twenty-five was it? I cant believe it been so long!

GG: Jake. 

GT: Haha! Just pulling your leg janey! Id have to be a right blunderbuss to not remember your twenty-SIXTH birthday after you so keenly reminded me of it!

GT: Thank you for the post-it note in my fridge by the way. The skull you drew in the corner really pulled it together.

GG: Oh!!! Well, I’m glad you liked it!

GT: In fact i messaged you for these particular celebratory shenanigans! Theres no hat and all cattle about this janey ive really brought the cow to market with your gift this year!

GG: Really. How could you possibly beat last year’s present of...Monopoly.

GT: I saw it and i thought of your budding entrepreneurial skills! 

GG: You even got the Star Wars edition.

GT: Yes! Nothing like a bit of rambunctious space camaraderie in board games i say!

GG: You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were hinting at something. 

GT: I assure you i havent the foggiest idea what youre referring to! Now do you want my birthday gift or not?

GG: Fine, what is it?

golgothasTerror sent a file!-

GG: Jeepers J, this is taking an awful long time to download! How large is it?

GT: Its my entire collection!

GG: Of...movies?

GT: No? Did you want those? They might take two shakes of a lambs tail…

GT: Two very long shakes at that. 

GG: No! What are they though?

GT: My cerulean beauties of course!

GG: ...oh.

GT: Ill tell you that youre definitely a lot easier to please now that your pastures have lets say...broadened. 

GT: Not to be churlish about the whole thing but there are certainly a lot more blue bodacious babes than midnight hued mustachioed gentlemen! It was certainly a struggle photoshopping all those mustaches on to the fellows along with shifting their skin a shade!

GT: Not that the endeavour wasnt wholly worth it if youre asking me. 

GG: Gee Jake...I don’t know what to say!

GT: Theres no need to thank me! Just procure them at your leisure and take a gander whenever it strikes your fancy!

GT: I can keep you posted with any new additions too if youd like? Consider it a free of charge upgrade courtesy of skaianet!

GG: No!

GG: I mean, you don’t have to put yourself through any trouble. Honestly this is...too much as it is.

GT: Shucks! Well just consider it a token of our rehashed friendship!

GG: Yipee. 

GG: Not to cut this lovely exchange short, but it seems I’m receiving correspondence from our Mr. Strider!

GT: Oh. 

GT: About him…

GG: Look at the time!!! I better see what exactly he needs from me!! Finish that thought later, maybe?? I’m sure it’ll be RIVETING!!! 

gutsyGumshoe ceased pestering golgothasTerror

GT: ...toodles?

 

timaeusTestified began pestering gutsyGumshoe

 

TT: Sorry.

TT: You know, about missing your birthday. 

GG: There’s no need to apologise! You gave me a rather needed distraction just now so we’ll call it even stevens!

TT: I did?

GG: Yes, I was just talking to Jake. 

GG: Evidently something happened and if the deja vu of today is anything to go by I was going to hear all about it!

TT: He was talking about me?

GG: Well, not exactly. He was sending me naked blue birthday presents again.

TT: ...What?

GG: Honestly, I’m not sure why it took me so goshdarn long to see that he wasn’t, lets say, playing for any particular team. I really wasn’t that observant myself back then, was I?

TT: What did he say about me?

GG: Nothing really. Just his usual roundabout hemming and hawing so as to try to convince me to ask him what’s wrong so he can blab the ear off me. I may have patched things up with him and all but we are certainly not headed down that route again. I’m far too busy. :B

TT: You patched things up?

GG: I certainly hope so! I wouldn’t much like to go through it all again!

GG: I'm sure you could do the same?

TT: Somehow, I think I want to avoid the route you took.

GG: Hoo.

TT: Sorry.

GG: No no, don't be.

GG: Do talk to him, though. I have a very important engagement and I'd rather not get involved in any more boy problems that may distract me from it.

TT: Noted.

TT: …

TT: I think he's ignoring me though. 

TT: I mean, implying it's a thought and not an indisputable fact is just the kind of cushioning a guy needs to sleep at night. It's a pillow soft as prime puppet ass, stuffed with feathers and wishful thinking.

TT: Knocks you right out when you set your troubled head on its silver lining.

TT: A bed made for a fucking king.

GG: Dirk.

TT: Sorry.

GG: I'm logging off now.

 

 

 

“So Jane gave me this cake,” Rose starts as Kanaya looks up where she has been squinting at her embroidery book. Although sewing is her area of expertise, her claws often impede the finer details which is troublesome. The cake is a little melted and mishapen, collapsed on one side. There is a cocktail stick sticking out of the middle and there is a post it note attached to it with a semi-ironic notarized letter of apology. Kanaya raises an eyebrow as Rose places it on the coffee table.

“I thought it was her birthday,” she says, amused. “Should we not at least be sharing it if we’re not celebrating?”

“She said she didn’t want a party anymore,” Rose says with a deferential shrug as she perches on the arm of Kanaya’s chair. She points at a rose embroidery pattern. “If you’re opening the floor to suggestions, I personally think those particular flowers are interesting indeed.”

“Interesting is one word for it,” Kanaya replies, tilting her head up to press a fanged smile against Rose’s cheek. “She didn’t want a party? That seems rather unlikely.”

“I’m not going to ask. I think we’ve both meddled enough, don’t you?”

Kanaya looks affronted as Rose titters behind her hand. “Rose, I had nothing to do with this, as you are perfectly aware.”

“It rolls over.”

“It does not roll over.”

“It so rolls over.”

“It does not roll over. It so doesn’t roll over that in fact it stays exactly put with no unnecessary circular movement.”

They leave the cake to melt.

 

 

Jane starts out of her daydream when Terezi slams a paper bag on the table in front of her. Her eyes snap from the other to the bag and back again, her glasses askew with surprise. “What’s this?” she asks, leaning out of her chair to peer into the bag.

“I had to fight Strider on this one,” Terezi says, grinning toothily, “He tried to pawn me off with a shitty goldfish but I knew the real culprit was lurking in that lake somewhere.

Jane doesn’t question what Dirk has to do with any of this. She already knows what Dirk and the lake have to do with each other. “The real culprit?”

“The fish, remember.”

Jane remembers and reaches into the bag to gingerly pull the bowl out. It’s a ceramic patterned bowl, clearly stolen from the kitchen. Inside, is an oversized goldfish. “This is...the culprit?” she asks, warily placing the bowl down on the desk.

“No, it’s just the biggest fish I could find,” Terezi answers breezily. Jane looks down at the fish, swimming in circles, somewhat crestfallen.

“Er. It’s lovely. Thank you.”

“I think the real culprit is still on the loose,” Terezi continues, “Probably framed the fish, you know how it is. You got gills, you do kills. It’s a cut-throat business. Anyway, want to check Highway 6 for some clues?”

Jane looks up. Terezi winks. A smile works its way onto their faces.

“Do I.”

 

 

When Dave opens his door and sees Jade, he almost closes the door in her face again. Jade, however, is far too fast and is in the door and behind him before he can do anything. He uselessly closes the door behind her.

“If you’ve come here for Jake, I can tell you I don’t have any,” he starts, waving a hand in a rolling motion, “He went back to his room like an hour ago. What I do have is a certain amount of knowledge. Knowledge that you’re apparently ready to kick my ass. But I gotta warn you, if you kick my ass, the ghost of my ass will hunt you down. It’ll find you. It’ll--”

“Wow, you’re so lame,” Jade says, laughing, “I didn’t come here to kick your ass. Though, I will if you ever do something that freakin’ dumb again! I can’t believe you did all this for a stupid bet!”

“That’s what I said,” Karkat says, shuffling into the room to lean against the doorframe. Dave shoots him a look that clearly reads that Karkat didn’t care enough about this in general to persuade Dave one way or the other.

“And with Rose! Jeez, Dave, what could Rose do to make you such a baby?”

“Is that a question you are seriously asking me. Are you really questioning the powers of Lalonde right now?”

Jade crosses her arms and sticks out her tongue. “It was a baby bet for babies. Which kinda makes it even worse that you messed around with my grandpa and your brother for it. It’s not like it was the mafia, Dave!”

“No, it was Rose Lalonde- certified ten times worse than the mafia by the elder gods of paradox space.”

That doesn’t get an answer and instead Jade just sighs, fishing something out of her sylladex. “Anyway, I’m not here for that. Jake just wanted me to drop this off for you? He said it was a gift for dealing with this whole situation.”

Dave groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Seriously? The guy is giving us a fucking hospitality present just because we, what? Let him drown his sorrows in shitty B flicks here? Sorrows we damn well caused? We already apologised to him for the whole bet thing, you think he’d have heard that and been like ‘well gee jiminy, guess it isn’t my fault!’ That’s like--”

“It’s Legally Blonde 2,” Karkat says, taking it out of Jade’s hands and quickly returning to the living room with it. Dave’s face pales as Jade snorts openly.

“Oh, no. I guess he’s just finally learned to utilise all that passiveness into the form of aggression with the most plausible deniability. Fucking super.”

“Deniable or not,” Jade replies, grinning, “you totally deserve it.”

“You fucking bet I do. Let’s see if Legally Blonde makes it to the White House this time.”

 

 

 

“So, John's been telling everyone about the gushers,” Dirk starts with, scratching the back of his neck, “You really did a number on him. I don't think he'll ever forgive you.”

Jake stands with his arms folded in the doorway, lips pursed. “Mhm.”

“Like, seriously, I think you've got yourself into a killer prank war. He won't stop until everything you love is dead, you know.”

Jake's face tightens. He doesn't respond. Dirk flounders for words.

“Uh. Can I expect similar rebuttal? I mean, I better warn you that I don't have the same visceral reaction to gushers, Crocker confectionery or not.”

Jake holds up a finger and walks back into his room. Dirk stands on the doorstep, desperately swallowing to ease his dry mouth. Jake comes back a few moments later, carrying a capped bottle of tomato juice. Specifically Dirk’s juice. Jake must have never drank it afterwards.

“Put your head down,” Jake says, twisting the cap off. Dirk feels his blood run cold.

“What?”

“You heard me! Get your mug acquainted with the skirting boards and turn that noggin around!”

Dirk already knows what's going to happen. He sucks in a breath and takes a second to mourn the solid hour he spent perfecting his hair for seeing Jake again. He tips his head upside down and Jake wastes zero time in pouring the entire contents of the bottle over him. It drips like syrup down his neck and he shudders.

Jake is somewhat splashed when he flicks his head up and looks none too impressed by it. Dirk looks as apologetic as he can look while desperately trying to restrain himself from running to the nearest shower. The juice sticks to his hair in a congealed mess.

“I deserved that,” he says after a few moments.

Jake nods solemnly. “You did.”

“So.” Dirk hesitates, “I don’t want to ask if we’re cool now, because I get the sense that I fucked up pretty bad. But if you want to throw more juice at me I should warn you that my hair is at maximum soakage and it will drip on your carpet.”

“Why did you go along with it?” Jake snaps, “Like, you could have just talked to me! Just because you ran your mouth and accidentally tossed me the mitten doesn’t mean you can’t just *fix* it! Did nobody think in the midst of this whole freaking *bet* you had going on to just *ask* me how I felt, or what *I* wanted? Like you all felt you had to trick me to get me to go along with it, like I haven’t been going along with it of my own free will for the past *decade*! Do you all really think so little of me? Of my integrity? Of my *intelligence*??”

Dirk pauses. “What bet?”

Jake pauses. “Oh.” His hand covers his mouth, fingers pulling at his lip slightly as his brow furrows. “Huh. You weren’t in on that?”

“To be honest, I don’t think I’d fucking remember if I was, so don’t go trying to make justifications out of it.” He shrugs. “I fucked up.That’s on me.”

Jake is silent for a moment longer, brow set in a heavy line. He moves slightly out of the doorway and back into the room. “You can come in, if you want,” he says, wrapping his arms around his middle.

Despite the offer, Dirk doesn’t move to enter the room yet. “I don’t think you’re really thinking this through,” he says, uncertainly, “You’re really just going to, what, pretend this never happened? Like, half a conversation and a pretty fucking wasted bottle of tomato juice and everything’s okay? That seems pretty fucking disproportionate all things considered. I gotta admit, I was kinda expecting you to never want to talk to me again.”

“Oh for pete’s sake, Dirk,” Jake snaps, “You’ve done worse than this and I never kicked you to the kerb!”

“I have no idea what point you’re trying to make but you know that just shows you have a track record for really poor judgement calls, right?”

“But they’re *my* judgement calls!” Jake slaps the empty bottle on the counter, swirling to face Dirk in the doorway, hands waving. “They’re mine that I get to make for me! I don’t need you to decide what I want or what I should do, the same way I didn’t need everyone pussyfooting and conspiring behind my back over what they thought was the best outcome for me! I don’t need your protection! I don’t need you deciding for me what I’m ready for and what I can handle because, surprisingly, I can make those decisions for myself! And if they’re the wrong decisions, fine! That doesn’t matter because they’re *mine*! And right now, what I want is for you to shut your clapper and sit over there and keep mum!”

Dirk falls silent and he steps over the threshold, shutting the door behind him. “For the record,” he starts, continuing a little sheepishly when Jake shoots him a glare, “this isn’t what they recommend in the manual.”

“Strider, I don’t give one single hooey about what it says in the manual!”

“Yeah, I figured that.”

He makes his way over to the beanbag and sits under the skylight with his back to Jake. He can hear the other foostering around behind him for what feels like hours. Despite everything that he’s said, Dirk can sense when he’s avoiding interacting with him for just a little longer. He feels his shoulders sink. The tomato juice continues to drip down his neck and it takes every cell in his body to stop from running to the bathroom for a nice, long shower.

After a while, Jake comes and sits on the other beanbag. They sit in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes until, in their usual semi-synchronisation, they fall back to lie under the skylight, a world of space between them.

They’re silent for another era before Dirk speaks. “So, what did we name these stars anyway,” he asks, pointing at a centre star. “Or did we name them at all.”

Jake doesn’t answer and Dirk falls silent again, looking off to the side. After an uncomfortably long time has past, he answers, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t think it matters,” he says, folding his hands on his stomach. He looks, a little off centre, over at Dirk. “I think, maybe, things don’t need names sometimes. Like, what does it matter if a star is a star? I think maybe it only matters how we see them. What do you think?”

And not for the first time in his life, Dirk agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with me until the end of this! This is my first finished multichapter fic in almost a decade. It's not my best work every, but I've definitely learned some valuable lessons about how to stay on track. This fic, despite having every major event and chapter summary planned out since before the first chapter was posted, got ridiculously off track to the point where it's not how I imagined it at all. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing either and I'm glad so many people could enjoy it along the way. 
> 
> I have a few more multi-chapters planned, once of which I hope to start posting before the end of 2018- but only after I have all future chapters written as well. Just in case. I also have several one-shots planned out too, so keep an eye out for them. If you haven't read some of my older fics, feel free to check them out on my page! And, until next time I write something, you can find me at @dirkscourses on tumblr dot com. Feel free to shoot me questions there. I look forward to reading any comments people have on tumblr or in the comment section here. That's it from me for now, thank you and good night! *bows out*


End file.
